New Social Media Study: Majority Cannot Live Without Social Networks
Could you survive without your social networks? (Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? MySpace!?)
Tom H. C. Anderson, managing partner at Anderson Analytics, shared the result of their May survey of 5,000 U.S. social media users which attempts to answer this (the answer is: mainly no). Without reposting the entire article, here is a summarized outline:
- Percentage of respondents could probably do without:
- Facebook (29%)
- MySpace (35%)
- Twitter (43%)
- On the most valuable network (the report is not clear on how it was calculated since the sum is over 100%)
- Facebook (75%)
- MySpace (65%)
- LinkedIn (30%)
- Twitter (12%)
- Usage and reliance on social networks
- Under 35, for "fun" and contacting friends
- Older, indispensable for staying in touch with family and close friends
We highly recommend that you also read the full article since it gives some additional metrics and insights. They also touch brand promotion on social networks, an area particularly of interest to us at netParticles: they also acknowledge that companies create "social networking site profiles or widgets for brand-building and promotion". Here are some additional results:
- 50% said they have followed a commercial service, product, or brand on a social networking site
- 46% report saying something positive
- 23% have said something negative about a brand
It would be interesting to know the distribution of the demographics to verify which audience profile we can match this data with (e.g.: technology geeks, Gen Y professionals, etc).
Could this be the evidence of the importance of Social Networking Services (SNS) much needed for corporations to take this more seriously?