This chapter shows the use of different types of social media by enterprises with 10 or more persons employed in Ireland in 2016. It also provides information on enterprise purchase of cloud computing services and how the purchase of cloud computing services by Irish Enterprise is above the EU average.
| 2016 | |
| EU - 28 | 45 |
| 0 | |
| Malta | 71 |
| Ireland | 67 |
| Netherlands | 65 |
| Cyprus | 64 |
| Denmark | 64 |
| Finland | 60 |
| United Kingdom | 59 |
| Sweden | 58 |
| Belgium | 53 |
| Austria | 50 |
| Luxembourg | 49 |
| Germany | 47 |
| Slovenia | 46 |
| Lithuania | 45 |
| Greece | 44 |
| Portugal | 44 |
| Spain | 44 |
| Croatia | 42 |
| Estonia | 39 |
| Italy | 39 |
| France | 36 |
| Czech Republic | 34 |
| Hungary | 34 |
| Slovakia | 34 |
| Bulgaria | 32 |
| Romania | 30 |
| Latvia | 26 |
| Poland | 25 |
In 2016, 67% of Irish enterprises employing 10 or more people used some type of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube compared with an EU-28 average of 45%. In terms of enterprises using social media, Ireland ranked second in the EU-28. Malta had the largest percentage of enterprises in the EU-28 using social media at 71%, compared to 59% in the United Kingdom, while Poland had the lowest usage at 25%.
| Ireland 2016 | EU-28 2016 | Ireland 2015 | EU-28 2015 | |
| Use of any social media | 67 | 45 | 64 | 39 |
| Use of social networks | 65 | 42 | 62 | 36 |
| Use of enterprise blogs or microblogs | 33 | 14 | 30 | 13 |
| Use of multimedia content sharing websites | 23 | 15 | 21 | 13 |
| Use of wiki based knowledge sharing tools | 8 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
Interactive table: Statbank link
The primary method of using social media as a way of connecting with customers is the use of social networks, with 65% of Irish enterprises stating they used social networks such as Facebook in 2016, compared with 62% in 2015. Comparable data from Eurostat shows that the use of social networks by EU-28 enterprises increased from 36% in 2015 to 42% in 2016. Irish enterprises increased their usage of blogs or microblogs such as Twitter with 33% of enterprises using this method in 2016 compared with 30% in 2015. The use of multimedia content sharing websites such as YouTube increased from 21% of enterprises in 2015 to 23% in 2016.
| 2014 | 2015 | |
| Enterprise purchase of any cloud computing services | 35 | 36 |
| Storage of files | 25 | 27 |
| 23 | 26 | |
| Office software | 15 | 18 |
| Hosting the enterprise's databases | 14 | 17 |
| Finance or accounting software applications | 10 | 13 |
| Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software | 9 | 11 |
| Computing power to run the enterprise's own software | 6 | 8 |
Interactive Table: Statbank link
In 2016, 36% of Irish enterprises employing 10 or more persons purchased cloud computing services compared to 35% in 2015. The most popular cloud computing service purchased by Irish enterprises in 2016 was the storage of files at 27%, while 26% of Irish enterprises purchased e-mail services.
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