Social media: Like the boss, like the company

Use is thus directly related to personal attitudes and the emotionality attached to these new media. The aim of this study was to analyze not only the conscious uncertainties in dealing with social media, but also the unconscious barriers on an emotional level.

The Link Internet Panel used for the survey made it possible to reach a representative sample of executives specifically in their private environment. This made it possible to interview the 538 participants not only as the mouthpiece of a company, but also in terms of their personal attitudes and experience. More than 75 percent of the respondents work as managing directors, marketing or IT managers, and one-third each represented smaller (up to 49 employees), medium-sized (up to 249 employees) and large companies (250 employees or more) in all industries.

Social media is used by executives primarily for building a private and business network and exchanging information. In terms of business use, the new media are most frequently used as an information channel for products and services. Integration into other business tasks, such as communication with partner companies or customer service, is rarely found and is only used by 21 percent and 24 percent of companies, respectively.

Knowledge of social media was surveyed with an assessment of technical knowledge, strategic understanding, organizational requirements and the possible uses of the platform. Here, the person responsible for IT is the person who rates his or her knowledge the highest.

The potential loss of control in social media due to the disclosure of public data, the time that has to be spent and the fear of unwanted information becoming public are the most common emotional barriers to use. Nevertheless, in an explicit survey, the respondents' own sense of security when using social media is rated as high.

The statements become more differentiated when using the Implicit Association Test. This makes it possible to measure unconscious emotional attitudes as part of the online survey and to compare these with the explicit statements. This clearly shows a difference in perception: emotional barriers are unconsciously strong and influence attitudes, which have been shown to be a driver for the use of new media.

According to the evaluation, the barriers in social media can be summarized as follows: Uncertainty and lack of knowledge, unclear legal situation / data protection, no discernible benefit/sense and purpose, lack of resources, no reliable measurability and little to no integration into corporate processes.

For practical purposes, a cluster analysis can be used to describe six user types who have individual prerequisites for using social media for themselves personally and for successful use in the company. The social media competence model derived from the findings of the study enables this targeted analysis.

Graph 1: Study design. Composition of the sample

Figure 2: User structure and motives. Use broken down by function and private and business use

Figure 3: Motives for the use of social media in companies

Figure 4: Reasons against the use of social media in companies

Figure 5: Own assessment of competence: technical know-how, strategic understanding, organizational requirements, possible uses of platforms. Broken down by functional areas.

Graph 6: Measurement of emotional factor. Implicit Association Test IAT.