Frankfurt/Hamburg, May 5, 2011 – European investment professionals are still sceptical about social media, but they expect the importance of social media for information distribution and dialogue to increase.

 

According to the “Social Media Survey 2011” conducted by DVFA and Deutsche EuroShop only 45% see social media as at least partly important, while 71% use websites of business media as most important information sources.

 

"The majority of the respondents is sceptical about the importance and reliability of the information on social media platforms, but nevertheless they expect an increased use of social media for information distribution and dialogue," said Patrick Kiss, Head of Investor & Public Relations for Deutsche EuroShop.

 

Ralf Frank, Managing Director of DVFA, added: “Investment professionals’ favoured  social networking sites are Xing and LinkedIn, especially for the maintenance of business contacts.”

 

The study gauged investment professionals’ attitudes toward and usage of traditional, online and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.

 

In general, only a slim majority (51%) would follow if companies start to use social media to engage with the investment community, even if 62% don’t expect companies to do so.

 

Other findings

• Message boards are seen as more important than blogs and social media
• 31% of the respondents were prompted by blogs to make further investigations on an issue
• Desktops are the preferred hardware solutions (84%), 56% use Blackberry as smartphone
• If the respondents don‘t meet in person, they prefer the dialogue via email (79%) and phone (21%)
• 74% of the respondents spend more than 2 hours online per day

The results of the survey can be downloaded as PDF file (1.7 MB) at www.dvfa.de/socialmediasurvey2011

 

Survey Background

1,587 European investment professionals were invited by email to take part in an online survey running from 9 March to 11 April 2011. 74 respondents finished the complete survey with 18 questions. This corresponds with a response rate of 4.7%. Most respondents are analysts (36%), followed by a group with mixed functions (34%) and investors (29%).

DVFA – Society of Investment Professionals in Germany

DVFA is the Society of Investment Professionals in Germany. Currently, DVFA has more than 1,200 individual members representing over 400 investment firms, banks, asset managers, consultants and counselling businesses.

 

Deutsche EuroShop – The Shopping Center Company

Deutsche EuroShop is Germany's only public company, that invests solely in shopping centers in prime locations. The MDAX-listed Company currently has equity interests in 18 European shopping centers in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Poland.

 

Contact

Patrick Kiss Deutsche EuroShop AG Oderfelder Straße 23 20149 Hamburg Fon: +49 (0) 40 41 35 79-20 email: kiss@deutsche-euroshop.de www.deutsche-euroshop.de

Ralf Frank DVFA GmbH Mainzer Landstraße 47a 60329 Frankfurt am Main Fon: +49 (0) 69 26 48 48-0 email: ralf.frank@dvfa.de www.dvfa.de