Three-quarters of Maltese businesses advertised on social media last year, taking top spot in the Europe Union, but many are still thought to be reluctant to shift their focus online.

Data published by Eurostat earlier this week shows that 74 per cent of all Maltese enterprises, those employing 10 or more people, made use of social media in 2017. The EU average stood at 47 per cent.

Marcel Mizzi, vice president of the GRTU – Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises pointed out, however, that though there was an emerging trend whereby businesses took to social media to advertise, one had to bear in mind that it did not necessarily mean sales increased accordingly.

Read: Maltese rank second in EU for use of social media

He also noted that a good number of businesses had fewer than 10 employees, and therefore the Eurostat figures might not represent the true situation on the island. Mr Mizzi said more businesses were resorting to social media because they found it to be easier and quicker than maintaining a fully fledged website.

“If one has a small business it might be difficult to keep the website updated, and thus more and more people are setting up pages on social media, but this is hardly eCommerce,” Mr Mizzi pointed out.

Mr Mizzi said that while what was happening was better than not having any online presence, it still did not make up for running a fully fledged website.

He believes businesses should opt for both a social media presence and running a website.

Read: Maltese businesses at forefront in wide use of social media – Eurostat

“The best format would be having a website to sell the product and then running an advertising campaign on social media,” he said.

Insisting that more needed to be done to encourage businesses to shift online, something he said the GRTU had long been pushing, Mr Mizzi said it all boiled down to owners’ mentality and their willingness to incorporate eCommerce practices.

“Some still don’t understand the benefits of having a website and think having a page on social media is enough, but in reality, we know that it is not. It helps but it does not always lead to increases in sales,” Mr Mizzi said.

The Times of Malta reported on Friday the use of social networks by young Maltese adults continued to grow, increasing by 10 percentage points in a year.

Eurostat said 94 per cent of those 25-34 were active on social networks, up from 84 per cent in 2016 and higher than the EU average of 78 per cent.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.