Social media without a website: how small EU businesses show up online
A social profile can be a business’s first introduction to a customer. We used Eurostat’s 2025 data to ask how often small firms also have a website, and where the pattern changes.
This study covers EU businesses with at least 10 people employed in the surveyed industries. We analyzed the 2025 data on October 17, 2026.
Abstract
Most small EU businesses that use social media also have a website. In our analysis of Eurostat’s 2025 data, 9.7% of social-media users with 10–49 people employed reported no website, compared with 3.6% of medium-sized and 1.4% of large firms. The small-business result is 5.9% when measured against all eligible small firms, including those that do not use social media. These are two different denominators, not two different findings.[1][2]
The practical question is what happens after someone discovers the business. Can that person find the details they need and take the next step? This study describes how businesses combine social media and websites. It does not measure sales, the quality of either channel or whether a particular business needs a website. Its comparisons apply to the EU industries surveyed and exclude businesses with fewer than ten people employed.
A customer sees a post showing a piece of furniture being made. They like the work. Then come the ordinary questions: does the workshop deliver nearby, can it make a different size, and how do they ask for a quote? The post has done one job. The business still needs a way to answer the questions that follow.
For a small team, those answers may live on a website, in a social profile, in a booking service or in a conversation. Maintaining them takes time. It is understandable to ask whether a website is still necessary when customers already find the business through social media.
We cannot settle that decision by counting websites. We can establish what other businesses report doing. Eurostat measures both social-media use and the overlap between social media and websites. That lets us examine a specific group: firms that use social media but report no website, using the measured overlap between the two kinds of presence.[1]
The two groups within social-media users
Website and social media
Social media without a website
Most small social-media users also have a website
In 2025, 60.59% of eligible small EU firms reported using social media, and 54.69% reported having both social media and a website. Subtracting the second figure from the first leaves 5.90% of all eligible small firms using social media without a website. Dividing that result by the social-media users gives our headline figure: 9.7%.[1][2]
Put another way, among every 100 small firms using social media, roughly 90 also had a website and 10 did not. That does not mean only one in ten small businesses lacked a website. Firms that did not use social media sit outside this particular comparison, and some of them may also have lacked a site.
The share without a website becomes smaller in the larger business groups: 3.6% among social-media users with 50–249 people employed, and 1.4% among those with at least 250. The pattern is clear in this snapshot, although the calculation cannot tell us whether budget, customer needs or industry mix explains it.
For a small team, the finding offers context rather than a rule to follow. Combining a website with social media is common among the businesses represented here. Whether both deserve time in a particular business depends on the job each one does for its customers.
Social-media users without a website, by business size
EU, 2025. Each bar shows the percentage of social-media users in that business-size group reporting no website. The table also shows the share of all eligible firms, a different denominator.
Share of social-media users without a website (%)
Source measures and calculated shares
| People employed | Use social media (% of all firms) | Website and social media (% of all firms) | Social media without a website (% of all firms) | Without a website (% of social-media users) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small: 10–49 | 60.6% | 54.7% | 5.9% | 9.7% |
| Medium: 50–249 | 76.2% | 73.4% | 2.8% | 3.6% |
| Large: 250+ | 89.1% | 87.8% | 1.3% | 1.4% |
The EU average hides very different local patterns
The share of small social-media users without a website was about 0.9% in Finland, 1.8% in the Netherlands and 2.7% in Germany. It was 15.6% in France, 25.0% in Bulgaria, 25.3% in Portugal and 28.8% in Greece. Each percentage uses the same kind of denominator: small firms in that country that reported social-media use.[1][2]
The size pattern appears in most countries too. Small social-media users had a higher share without a website than large social-media users in 25 of the 27 EU countries. Czechia and Slovakia were the exceptions. This is a comparison of the published estimates, not a test of statistical significance. The full results retain those exceptions rather than treating the EU pattern as a universal rule.
These differences change how useful a single European benchmark can be. A team in the Netherlands would see a very different pattern among comparable-sized businesses from a team in Portugal. An agency serving both markets should not assume that its clients begin with the same combination of website and social presence.
The table is a description, not a league table of business quality. A lower figure does not establish better marketing, and a higher figure does not establish stronger social performance. Countries have different mixes of businesses; national survey practices can also affect comparisons. We have not adjusted these results to give every country the same industry mix.[4]
Before proposing a new content plan, an agency can ask where a client currently explains its offer and handles inquiries. The country data give that conversation context. They cannot replace looking at the individual business.
Small social-media users without a website, across the EU
Businesses with 10–49 people employed, 2025. These estimates are not adjusted for differences in industry mix and are not a ranking of marketing performance.
Share of social-media users without a website (%)
Country comparison by business size
Percentage of social-media users without a website in each size group, 2025. An unavailable estimate is not zero.
| Country | Small: 10–49 | Medium: 50–249 | Large: 250+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greece | 28.8% | 16.8% | 1.6% |
| Portugal | 25.3% | Not available | 2.2% |
| Bulgaria | 25% | 10.1% | 5.7% |
| Romania | 24.5% | 16.1% | 10.5% |
| Cyprus | 24.3% | 5.7% | 1.9% |
| France | 15.6% | 4.6% | 0.5% |
| Poland | 15.1% | 5.4% | 1.9% |
| Latvia | 14.8% | 4.5% | 1% |
| Malta | 14.4% | 7.3% | 4.2% |
| Ireland | 13.2% | 4.7% | 0.6% |
| Hungary | 12.2% | 5.7% | 5.1% |
| Lithuania | 12.1% | 3.4% | 0.5% |
| Estonia | 10.6% | 3.8% | 2.3% |
| Croatia | 10.2% | 4.7% | 2.1% |
| Italy | 10.1% | 3% | 2.4% |
| Slovakia | 9.2% | 4.5% | 9.7% |
| Luxembourg | 7.8% | 2% | 1.6% |
| Belgium | 6.8% | 2.5% | 0.9% |
| Spain | 6% | 1.9% | 0.6% |
| Sweden | 5.7% | 2.5% | 0.6% |
| Slovenia | 5.4% | 1.8% | 0% |
| Czechia | 3.4% | 1.9% | 3.6% |
| Denmark | 2.9% | 1.8% | 0.4% |
| Austria | 2.9% | 0.9% | 0.1% |
| Germany | 2.7% | 0.6% | 0.1% |
| Netherlands | 1.8% | 1.9% | 0.7% |
| Finland | 0.9% | 0.3% | 0% |
A missing website does not mean a business exists only on social media
Eurostat’s website measure can include a business’s presence on a parent company’s, group’s or franchisor’s site when the business controls its content there. A store’s own website built using a commerce platform can count too. A social profile or a directory or marketplace listing alone does not. A firm classified as having no website may therefore still have other ways for customers to find it, book or buy. Calling this group “social-only businesses” would describe more than the data establish.[3]
Likewise, reporting social-media use is not a measure of publishing regularly. The survey definition can include a profile that is no longer actively used. A website can also exist without answering a customer’s current questions. Neither yes-or-no measure tells us how well a business maintains its information.[3]
That makes the next practical step more specific than “post more” or “build a website.” Check the information a customer actually needs. If a post attracts interest but the next step is unclear, resolve that gap in the place the customer is likely to look. If both channels already answer those questions well, adding another destination may create maintenance work without solving a known problem.
Start with the question a customer needs answered
Social content and a website can give a small team different places to explain the same business. A post might introduce a finished project or answer a timely question. A website might hold the longer explanation of services, delivery areas or how to request a quote. Those are possible roles, not performance advantages measured by this study.
The first task is to list the questions that repeatedly arrive before a purchase or inquiry. Then follow the route from a recent post to an answer. Check whether the information is current, whether the reader must search through old posts, and whether the contact or booking step is clear. A simple review can reveal a specific repair without committing the team to a larger publishing schedule.
When both a website and social accounts are involved, decide which place holds details that change, such as availability or service coverage. Posts can explain and point to those details. Assign someone to update the source and check the references when the information changes. This gives the team a practical way to avoid conflicting answers.
A team working without a website can ask the same questions. It should check what a prospective customer can find before sending a message, which answers need repeating, and where requests are handled. The survey does not prescribe a particular tool or platform. The choice should follow the customer’s task and the team’s capacity to maintain the information.
One workshop, two places to answer questions
Consider a fictional furniture workshop with 18 people. It posts finished tables on Instagram and has a basic website. Customers repeatedly ask whether a table can be made to fit an awkward room. The team has limited time for content, and its website does not explain the process for requesting a custom size.
The workshop gives its next post one clear purpose: show how a size decision is made. A caption might begin, “A table should fit the room as well as the people around it. Start with the space you need to walk past it, then decide how many seats you use most days.” Photos show the measurement and a finished example.
The website gets a short explanation of what the workshop needs to prepare a quote: room measurements, the intended number of seats, the preferred finish and delivery location. The post directs interested readers to that explanation. The website does not need to repeat every social post; it needs to make the next conversation easier to begin.
If the same workshop had no website, its first task would still be to make those requirements easy to find and keep them current in the channels it uses. A website could be one option when a more detailed reference would help. The EU percentages alone are not a reason to commission one.
After publishing, the team reviews the questions it receives and the information included in inquiries. It can also use whatever relevant measurement it already maintains. The example does not assume a sales increase, require new tracking or predict the outcome. The decision is whether the new explanation solves the specific problem the team identified.
Follow the customer from interest to an answer
Find the missing answer
List the questions customers ask repeatedly. Follow a recent post and check whether a new visitor can find the answer.
Give the content a job
Choose one question for the post to explain. Keep fuller or frequently updated details in a place the team can maintain.
Review the next step
Check the inquiry or booking route. Use customer questions and existing measurement to decide what needs improving.
How we calculated the comparison
We analyzed Eurostat’s 2025 social-media-use table, isoc_cismt, retrieved October 17, 2026. The analysis uses the 27 EU countries and Eurostat’s published EU aggregate. Small firms have 10–49 people employed, medium-sized firms 50–249 and large firms at least 250. People employed includes employees and self-employed people. The covered industries include manufacturing, construction, trade and several service sectors. Firms below ten people and industries outside the survey’s coverage are excluded.[1][4]
For each country and size group, we matched two percentages from the same year, population and unit: E_SM1_ANY, using any social media, and E_WEB_SM1_ANY, having a website and using social media. Both use all eligible firms in that group as their denominator. Their difference is the percentage of eligible firms using social media without a website. We then divide that difference by E_SM1_ANY and multiply by 100 to express it as a share of social-media users.[2]
The calculation uses a published joint measure of website and social-media use. It does not subtract all website owners from all social-media users, assume that the two are independent or add separate national percentages together. The EU figures come from Eurostat’s EU aggregate rather than a simple average of country results. Our tables keep the two denominators separate.
Both required measures are available for small and large firms in all 27 EU countries in 2025. Portugal’s joint website-and-social measure for medium-sized firms is unavailable and flagged for low reliability, so we leave its derived result blank in the downloadable data. The EU medium-sized aggregate is published and remains in the size comparison. Missing values are not treated as zero.
The main comparison is a 2025 snapshot. It does not follow the same businesses over time or show that a firm replaced its website with social media. The research package retains the 2023 observations as context, including France and Sweden’s break-in-series flags. Those flags refer to a break with earlier observations; they do not by themselves establish a break between 2023 and 2025. The standard tables also do not provide a joint country-by-size-by-industry breakdown for this calculation, so the country comparisons are not industry-adjusted.
The source is a business survey, not a census of every website. Eurostat publishes aggregate estimates rather than the respondent records and covariance needed to calculate sampling intervals for this derived ratio. We therefore show descriptive estimates without confidence intervals and do not call small country differences statistically significant. Source rounding, sampling, nonresponse, definitions and national survey practices can all affect interpretation.[4]
We also checked how rounding the source percentages could affect the comparison. Allowing each input to vary by 0.005 percentage points in either direction leaves all 27 small-versus-large country comparisons pointing the same way. This checks sensitivity to the published two-decimal precision only. It is not a confidence interval and does not remove survey uncertainty.
Earlier work, including The Knowledge Engineers’ Digital Marketing in Europe report, has examined the broader website and social-media totals. This analysis focuses on the country and business-size differences within social-media users. It is an original calculation from public data, not a claim that nobody has previously studied businesses without websites.[5]
The downloadable tables retain the source measures alongside our derived values. The research package contains the source snapshot, formulas and checks so the results can be reproduced. Display values are rounded for reading; calculations use the published values before display rounding. Influence is responsible for the analysis and interpretation. Eurostat is not responsible for these modifications or conclusions.[6]
The CSV includes source percentages, calculated shares and source quality flags. Numeric fields use a decimal point for reuse in analysis.
Sources and notes
- Eurostat, Social media use by type, internet advertising and size class of enterprise (isoc_cismt), accessed October 17, 2026. The 2025 comparison uses percentage of enterprises (PC_ENT), the covered-industry aggregate C10-S951_X_K and the EU aggregate or individual EU country. Source values are published survey estimates.
- Influence IQ calculation: social users without a website, as a percentage of all eligible firms = E_SM1_ANY − E_WEB_SM1_ANY. As a percentage of social-media users = 100 × (E_SM1_ANY − E_WEB_SM1_ANY) / E_SM1_ANY. For small EU firms: 60.59 − 54.69 = 5.90 percentage points; 100 × 5.90 / 60.59 = 9.74%. The displayed headline rounds to 9.7%.
- Eurostat’s 2025 compilers’ manual, pages 28–29 and 31–32, defines website presence and social-media use. A business’s presence on a parent, group or franchisor site can count when it controls its content there. A store’s own site built using a commerce platform also qualifies; a social profile or directory/marketplace listing alone does not. Dormant business social profiles can count as social-media use. Neither measure establishes regular publishing or exclusive reliance on social media.
- Eurostat, ICT usage in enterprises: reference metadata. The population, national methods, weighting and comparability notes qualify the results. The analysis uses published aggregate estimates; it does not have the joint sampling information needed for confidence intervals on the derived ratio. Country differences are descriptive and are not adjusted for industry composition.
- The Knowledge Engineers, Digital Marketing in Europe, provides prior analysis of European website and social-media totals. This study adds a focused comparison of the derived share without a website among social-media users by country and business size.
- Source: Eurostat, accessed October 17, 2026. Influence has calculated derived shares and adapted the presentation. Eurostat bears no responsibility for these modifications, analyses or interpretations. Reuse of the original data follows Eurostat’s copyright and reuse notice.