Irish firms are the second biggest users of social media in EU

Irish companies are the second biggest users of social media in the European Union, according to new figures published on Wednesday.

According to the statistics, which have been compiled by CSO on behalf of Eurostat, some 64 per cent of Irish enterprises employing 10 or more people use the likes of Facebook and Twitter, compared to an EU-average of 39 per cent.

Malta has the highest percentage of EU businesses using social media at 72 per cent, while Poland has the lowest at 22 per cent.

Some 62 per cent of Irish companies said they used social media platforms as their primary method for connecting with customers, up from 58 per cet and 46 per cent in 2014 and 2013 respectively.

The figures indicate that companies in Ireland increased their use of blogs and microblogs such as Twitter last year, with some 30 per cent of enterprises now saying they use such platforms, versus 27 per cent last year and 20 per cent in 2013.

The use of multimedia content sharing sites such as YouTube by Irish firms has also risend, jumping from 14 per cent in 2013 to 19 per cent last year and 21 per cent in 2015.

Overall, the use of social media by businesses in the EU rose from 28 per cent in 2013 to 33 per cent last year and to 36 per cent in 2015.

The statistics show 35 per cent of companies in Ireland purchased cloud computing services in 2015, against an EU average of 28 per cent. Finland was ranked highest for purchases of such services at 53 per cent with Bulgaria lowest at just 5 per cent.

The most popular cloud computing services were file storage products such as Dropbox and email services.

Some 42 per cent of Irish firms said they had a detailed ICT security policy that covers issues such as the disclosure of confidential data and cyber attacks. Of those enterprises with a policy, 71 per cent said it had been defined or reviewed over the last 12 months. Some 10 per cent admitted that policies had not been updated in more than two years.

Some 53 per cent of large enterprises in Ireland said over half of their sales were ecommerce-related. Some 51 per cent of medium-sized firms said ecommerce accounted for 23 per cent of sales while 28 per cent of smaller companies said 16 per cent of revenue came via the internet.