The Swiss social media study was conducted by Bernet Relations and the ZHAW for the fourth time, after those in 2012, 2013 and 2016. According to Guido Keel, director of the IAM Institute of Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW, the most recent study shows growing professionalisation, including more strategic groundwork, budgets for implementing the strategy and a more positive perception of the cost-benefit ratio. Overall, Irène Messerli, the co-author from Bernet Relations, sees a need for action in that most companies have developed strategies, but only half of them for the company as a whole. She adds that there is a need for action concerning the involvement of key players outside marketing and communication. In particular, the sales department, customer services and/or internal communications should be included.

In comparison with previous studies, there has been an increase in resources for social media channels. Around 80% of all respondents already have a budget or will soon be approving one. Moreover, more money will be invested in paid online reach. A large number of the companies regularly increase the online reach of their content via social ads. 40% of the respondents use this option on a weekly or even daily basis, a clear majority of them on Facebook.

Involvement of influencers – little in-house training available
Personnel resources are still primarily devoted to the creation and management of content. However, little is being invested in in-house training and continuing education. This is surprising, because internal and external opinion makers (influencers) are being deployed by a majority of the respondents: 61% have already implemented such measures or plan to do so in the coming months. Activities in the field of social media monitoring were intensified: Four-fifths of the organisations have developed a system for this purpose. The cost-benefit ratio was assessed more positively than in previous studies. For 45% of respondents, the benefits are higher than the costs, for 45% they are in balance and 10% are undecided. Sceptics see difficulties and obstacles in the area of data security, in the target groups’ lack of trust concerning loss of control, in the potential for escalation through collective outrage and in a trend towards more “offline” communication. The respondents expect that social media will particularly gain importance in the area of personnel marketing.

The whole study (in German):
www.bernet.ch/socialmediastudie

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Guido Keel: guido.keel@zhaw.ch,
Tel. +41 58 934 77 65

The most important findings at a glance

Involvement is stagnating – only a few newbies
The proportion of organisations involved in social media has stagnated at a high of 89%. The number of experienced users who have been using these channels for more than six years has increased significantly. About half of the respondents are currently working on gaining more experience (from one to a maximum of six years of use), and only a small minority is new at it. The few non-users mentioned loss of control, organisational difficulties or a lack of a convincing strategy as reasons.

Increasingly strategic
The previous studies indicated that strategic approaches were lacking. This has improved significantly, with 90% of the respondents already having written specifications. However, about half of those are only for certain areas or projects. Especially NPOs and unlisted companies are still operating without a strategy. Opportunities for further improvement also exist in the area of inter-departmental involvement: social media activities are usually delegated to departments such as marketing (76%) or communications (75%), although HR, service and sales are also involved.

Visibility, reach, proximity
The most important objective when using social media remains to increase the organisation’s  visibility. According to the respondents, the objectives of creating trust and improving their own image via social media are practically on a par. It is notable that political organisations and administrations primarily use social media to establish direct contact with customers or citizens as well as a means of communicating with journalists.

Strongest growth: Chat services and live streaming
While Facebook and Youtube shared the top position on the list of most-used platforms in 2016, Youtube is now a little ahead. The trend towards visual content as well as directly experienceable and fast-paced content via live streaming and chat networks is obvious. The involvment with Instagram and the business network LinkedIn continued to grow significantly and respondents stated that they wanted to learn more about both platforms.

Paid online presence: more advertising
The biggest change from previous surveys was in the use of paid social media space. Until now, this was only experimented with, but today most of the companies and organisations are already paying for their online reach. The use is wide-ranging: not only commercial companies but also NPOs, civil authorities, political organisations and associations allocate budgets to secure their online presence. The frequency that financial resources are used emphasises the importance of online reach: four out of ten organisations advertise weekly on the social web.

Social media engagement: content, strategy and dialogue
Respondents rate the production and maintenance of content as the most important activities in the context of social media use. Conception, strategic development and customer dialogue have all become more important, while evaluation, monitoring and technical issues received far less attention in the results of this year’s survey. According to the survey, the least investment is directed towards in-house training and continuing education. Further developments in this area are likely to create new needs for action.

Resources: More budgets and external support
In the past, organisations were often expected to carry out social media activities within existing budgets. Today, 70% of all companies have specific budgets, compared to 30% in 2013. At the same time, resources are also outsourced, primarily to PR and communications agencies. Specialised social media agencies have lost their significance in this year’s survey, after being the most frequently named two years ago. What is surprising is that content editing is outsourced the most, even more than ad placements and technology.

Influencers: internal and external opinion makers
Influencers are individuals who express their opinions about a company or its offers and services. They are either internal employees or external opinion makers. More than half of the organisations that responded already work with influencers. Administrations and political organisations tend to work with internal influencers, while companies work with both internal and external influencers.

More monitoring and evaluation
Four out of five companies systematically track social media and monitor social media platforms. This is almost twice as many as four years ago, so awareness of the importance of listening has risen. Most organisations track social media activities with free monitoring applications and continue to measure their success on social media mainly on the basis of fans, likes, followers and user numbers. For the future, greater consideration of the influence on public discourse and additional sentiment analyses are planned.

Future: Strategy and recruitment
The respondents consider the use of social media for human resources marketing and the expansion of the social media strategy across all departments and areas as the two activities whose significance will increase the most in the next two years.