DreamGrow Social Media

Social Media and Young Adults

Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study about internet and social media use among Millennial generation by situating it within similar data for adolescents and adults older than 30. The data on teens is drawn from a survey conducted between June 26 and September 24, 2009 of 800 adolescents (ages 12 to 17). The adult data are drawn from a survey conducted between August 18 and September 14, 2009 of 2,253 adults (age 18 and over). Here are some of the key findings:

Blogging is down among young adults

• One of the findings is that young people are blogging less than they used to. 14% of online teens say they blog, down from 28% in 2006.
• Also the commenting activity is lower as 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
• In 2009 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintain a blog —a 9% point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog (7% in 2007).

Social networking sites’ usage numbers

• 73% of wired American teens use social networking websites. 55% of online teens used social networking sites in November 2006.
• 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008.
• 72% of online 18-29 year olds use social networking websites, significantly higher than the 40% of internet users ages 30 and up who use these sites.
• Adults are increasingly fragmenting their social networking experience as a majority of those who use social networking sites – 52% say they have two or more different profiles.
• Among adult profile owners 73% have a Facebook profile, 48% have a MySpace profile and 14% have a profile on LinkedIn.

Teens are not using Twitter

• 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter. Older teens are more likely to use Twitter than their younger counterparts; 10% of online teens ages 14-17 do so, compared with 5% of those ages 12-13.
• Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year olds post or read status updates.

Mobile

• Three-quarters of teens and 93% of adults ages 18-29 now have a cell phone.

Internet usage

• 93% of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 go online. 74% of all adults ages 18 and older go online.
• 48% of online teens have bought things online: books, clothing or music, up from 31% in 2000.

Image credit Bina Sveda

Facebook More Visited Than Google

Everything social is what people want to do most. Currently the top site is still Google but it will pass. People love to talk more than search. If we look at the top sites in US for 2009 then we see that four of them are used for communicating with others (Yahoo Mail, Facebook, MySpace and Live Mail). I believe that this social chatter is fundamental human need and won’t go away any time soon.

As we pointed out in our 22 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010, people will use more social networks’ messaging instead of regular email and IM. This will boost the visits to the social sites and decrease the usage of web mail. This all leads to Facebook becoming the most visited site in the world some time in 2010.

Experian Hitwise US tweeted that:

Facebook was the most visited site in the US on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 1st time the site has been the #1 visited US site ever. — Hitwise_US

Search Engine Land has a Hitwise graph for the data running up to the Christmas.

Experian Hitwise UK shared their data:

Facebook was the #1 US website this Xmas. Not quite there in the UK yet – maybe next year… — Hitwise_UK

I think there are two factors holding back total domination of Facebook. Lack of news and god-awful search. If Facebook would integrate Bing search to its platform then Google would have a lot to worry about.

Research: Student Grades Not Affected By Social Networking

The study “Social Networking Usage and Grades Among College Students” (PDF) finds that students who heavily engage in social networking do just as well academically as students who are less interested in keeping in touch with the medium.

The study indicates that social media is being integrated with rather than interfering with students’ academic lives. College students have grown up with social networks, and the study shows they are now simply part of how students interact with each other with no apparent impact on grades. – UNH adjunct professor Chuck Martin

It seems that most of the time that is used for social networks comes from TV, idle surfing, and gaming. This way the time spent on social networking sites could be said to be a “higher quality” activity. The time for studying and other important thing stays the same.

The research shows that there is no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades. Grades followed similar distributions for all colleges.

63% of heavy users received high grades, compared to 65% of light users. 37% of heavy users of social media received what were defined as lower grades and 35% of light users fell into same category.

The study showed that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social media sites, with 96% of students saying they use Facebook and 84% saying they use YouTube. 20% said they use blogs, 14% use Twitter, 12% use MySpace and 10% use LinkedIn.

89% of students use social networks for social reasons and 79% use them for entertainment. 26% of students use social media for educational reasons and 16% for professional reasons.
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Image credit Mary Gober

Market Share of Social Networking Sites 2009

I have had a lot of people asking me about market shares of different social networking sites. So I went out and searched for most resent data I could find. While there’s really not much information freely available I compiled this list of sources that are all dated some time this year.

Top 10 Social Networking Websites & Forums October 2009, the Hitwise data is based on US market share of visits.

A Map Of Social (Network) Dominance. Really cool interactive map application with data from June 2009. Which social network is the most popular in each country?

Facebook statistics by country. Gender, age groups, percentage of online population. Very useful site. Updates frequently with current data from November 3, 2009.

Whee! New numbers on social network usage. Compete.com data from January 2009 showing uniques visitors and monthly visits of 25 top social networks.

Global Faces and Networked Places (PDF). A Nielsen report on Social Networking’s New Global Footprint. March 2009. Putting the growth of social networks, popularity and engagement into context.

How the Old, the Young and Everyone in Between Uses Social Networks. What are the reasons different generations are in social media and which social networks they use. US data from May 2009.

Facebook Growth Increases in Latin America, Argentina Now Largest Country in Region. Brazil growing at a rate of 33 percent per month. Data from November 1, 2009.

Facebook Is Now the Fourth Largest Site In The World. ComScore data of worldwide audience from June 2009.

Top Twenty Five Social Networking Sites, May 2009. Number of unique visitors with yoy change the data is actually only for top 20 sites. Top 10 of display ad impressions and projected ad income of Facebook, MySpace and other destinations in social media.

Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace. Facebook and MySpace are 17 and 13 respectively among social networking sites in China. Data from around April 2009.

China social networking sites statistics 2009 (updated).

If you know of any good resources with up to date data then please share in the comments.

• Related article Social media statistics and data for the weekend

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Image credit: spekulator

Portrait of a Twitter user

Status update demographics accross major services. 19% of internet users say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This is almost twice as much as in the previous surveys from December 2008 and April 2009, where this nomber was only 11%.

Gadget people are using status-update services. The more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Use of status-update services by device count:

• 39% of users with more than three internet-conncted devices
• 28% of users with three devices
• 19% of users with two devices
• 10% of users with one device

The median age of the user is:

• Twitter 31
• MySpace 26
• LinkedIn 39
• Facebook 33

Read more in Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009.

SocialTwist Social Media Sharing Trends 2009

Really interesting result for me was that: Analysis shows that the most popular channel for sharing content is email. Nearly 60 per cent use email to share content.

Other major findings

• Despite the social media revolution – traditional forms of networking like email and instant messaging continue to be the most popular mediums of sharing content across the Internet. Nearly 60 percent of overall sharing happens over emails.
• Facebook has displaced MySpace as the most popular social networking site when it comes to sharing content.
• It is clear that Twitter is perceived to be a news broadcast platform and not a “sharing” platform. It enjoys only 5% of “shared information” traffic among popular social platforms.
• Bookmarks are rapidly losing their significance in the social media space. Only 2% of shares happen over Bookmarking sites.
• When it comes to email services, Yahoo Mail is still the most preferred, followed by MSN. Gmail is way behind.
• Google’s services like Google Bookmarking, Google Talk, Gmail, and Blogger have failed to replicate the brand’s search engine success online, especially when it comes to ’shared information.’
• LinkedIn, as a networking site, ranks the lowest when it comes to social media sharing.

via SocialTwist Social Media Sharing Trends 2009.

9% of SMBs Use Twitter for Marketing

According to the latest BIA/Kelsey’s study, 9% of small and medium-sized businesses use Twitter for marketing. In addition, 32 percent of small-businesses plan to use social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace in their marketing in the next 12 months.

39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites. It is about time to do that on their own territory as Google Sidewiki will let everyone to comment on every page. 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.

Social media is here to stay and companies are noticing. As more and more people move to social media companies see thet if they do not follow they will become obsolete.

Facebook up 194%, MySpace down 55%

US visits to social networking sites have increased 62 percent year over year and visits from 55 and older people have increased 77 percent.

Experian Hitwise survey found that Facebook accounted for 58.6% of US visits among 155 social networking sites in September 2009. The 58 percent was the highest among all social networking sites. US visits to Facebook increased 194 percent in September 2009 compared with September 2008. MySpace is losing ground. It still has the second-highest market share of US visits with 30% but this was 55% less than September 2008. Tagged received 2.4% of visits. Twitter had the largest percentage gain in market share of visits among the top five visited sites, increasing 1170 percent compared with September 2008. Compete.com numbers are a bit different but Facebook is still moving up and MySpace down.

US demographic breakdown of visitors to MySpace and Facebook

Experian Hitwise: Facebook Visits Increased 194 Percent in Past Year.

Washington Post’s Social Media Guidelines Get Posted

I think this one is a lose / lose. Journalistic integrity is a myth. Everyone has opinions. The idea of fair and balanced and “We report, you decide” is pure marketing BS. It’s how far a publication lets its opinions go that defines who they are and what position they hold in the marketplace.

The Washington Post is just exhibiting the desperate state of media as it goes through the growing pains of once having complete control and ultimate power to being relegated to the sidelines of relevancy because it has abused its position for far too long. People are fed up with the mainstream media controlling the message like these guidelines attempt to do so this will not help their efforts to stay alive.

via Washington Post’s Social Media Guidelines Get Posted.

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

There are three distinct groups of users with very different behavior. The low-status group (48% of users) are not well connected, show limited interaction with other members and are unaffected by social pressure. The middle-status group (40% users) is moderately connected, show reasonable non-purchase activity on the site and have a strong and positive effect due to friends’ purchases. In other words, this group exhibits “keeping up with the Joneses” behavior. On average, their revenue increases by 5% due to this social influence. The high-status group (12% users) is well connected and very active on the site, and shows a significant negative effect due to friends’ purchases. In other words, this group differentiates itself from others by lowering their purchase and strongly pursuing non-purchase related activities. This social influence leads to almost 14% drop in the revenue of this group. PDF by Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han, Sunil Gupta, February 26, 2009.