Report: Online businesses under-utilizing social media in Ireland

The results of a recent survey indicate that many ecommerce businesses in Ireland could be leveraging social media to a greater degree.

The survey, published by AMAS in the State of the Net quarterly bulletin, found that many Irish sites have not embedded social features, despite evidence indicating that such features can improve customer loyalty and increase ecommerce revenues.

According to the study, approximately 20 percent of Irish ecommerce websites have no social media features at all. Popular sites in this category include Ryanair, Tesco and UPC. An additional 42 percent have only a few social features.

The site that received the best score for social functionality was Amazon.co.uk with a grade of nine out of 10.

Aileen O'Toole, managing director of AMAS, said "it's surprising that a fifth of the businesses have no social media features at all on their sites - including some big guns." O'Toole also noted that some online brands have active Facebook and Twitter accounts, yet do not promote their social media presence on their websites.

In order to create a simple ecommerce website, a company needs to create a website with an online payment gateway. According to experts, however, this alone is not sufficient to attract customers and drive revenues.