Social Networks & Media

Social Networks and Media as seen from the Wasatch mountains:

Facebook and MySpace represent the giants with a combined 88% market share, even bigger than Google's dominance in search. As general purpose networks people often create profiles their as well as more targeted or niche platforms. And they're sticky - 95% repeat rate month to month. (From Hitwise).
In this season of elections - lots of people know that Obama leads McCain in terms of number of friends. But what about the social network footprint of republicans vs. democrats. In a sample of 5,000 registered voters from both parties it was not surprising to see social network penetration skew to the younger age brackets. It was surprising to see that Republicans were nearly twice as likely to have a social network profile as Democrats. (Recipe 31 benchmark study).
Where people converse realtors are sure to follow. Several reports of real estate now being conducted on line - including the first house sold via Twitter.
Mashups are playing havoc with brand identity. First there is the lack of coordination and interaction across silos. Second there is the lack of control as people get to choose how best to represent their thoughts - good, bad or indifferent. Third, it is not a time limited campaign but rather a ongoing process making it hard to fit in normal budgetary cycles.
From Universal McCann's global study:
- Asian markets are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
- All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves
  - Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
- 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
  - 55% of users have uploaded photos
  - 22% of users have uploaded videos
- The widget economy is real
  – 23% of social network users have installed an application
  – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates
- Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media
  – 73% have read a blog
- The blogsphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide
  – The number one thing to blog about is personal life and family
- China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers, more than the US and Western Europe combined
- Social media impacts your brands reputation
  - – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog
  - – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development. If you are online you are using social media