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It took way too long, but after Forrester Research conducted a 2008 poll, the group has come to the conclusion that social media activity is now mainstream. Okay, so this news is not as shocking as one would expect, but look at sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed for crying out loud. It is obvious that this stuff has gone mainstream. Regardless, the statistics are interesting to review, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
Reviewing the Stats
Let's jump right into things and take a look at the numbers provided by the polling group:
- 75% of Internet users participate in social media, whereas only 56% participated in 2007.
- 48% of respondents have read a blog at least once.
- 69% identified themselves as active "spectators" of blogs, up from 48% the previous year.
- 37% identified themselves as "critics" that write product reviews, up from 25% the previous year.
- 19% "collect" Internet content through social bookmarking and RSS feeds, up from 12% the previous year.
- 21% publish a personal blog or Web page, a minor increase from 18% the previous year.
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The picture is clear: social media usage is increasing. At the very least, these numbers were substantial enough in convincing Forrester Research to label social media activity as mainstream.
Content Creation Slows?
One interesting thing to note is the report's findings that the creation of content has rapidly decreased. The report states that blogging growth slowed to only a 10% increase. However, these statistics don't seem to properly represent the overall picture. Considering that participation in social media often requires the creation of content, is it not likely that the amount of content produced would actually increase rather than slow down?
Perhaps, the focus of the report was limited to traditional blogging in general. But, for example, mini-blogging is a popular activity that seems destined to give way to traditional blogging in the distant future. After all, people tend to create an impressive amount of content through sites like Twitter and Facebook.
The point is that -- regardless of what any single poll can tell us -- content creation as a whole is very likely to be increasing, as an increasing amount of people are connected to the Internet, and it is highly unlikely to slow anytime soon.
Social Media Constantly Changes
Forrester Research pointed out another interesting tidbit of information -- the gap among age groups is significantly declining when it comes to the use of social media. The research group found that 33- to 45-year-olds were increasingly participating with Web-based social media services. Considering youth is the dominant userbase of social media, it is nice to see some of the more mature among us becoming interested in social media.
"The novelty of today's social technologies will eventually wear off, and consumer adoption will plateau as all new media eventually do," Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst, stated. "But consumers will expect marketers to continue the relationship they've formed over time and still listen to what they have to say."
In the end, social media rolls on as it gains strength in numbers and recognition as a mainstream activity. Considering the drastic improvements within the mobile industry, things might just be getting started.
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Right, it's not surprising! But these are useful numbers to put in front of execs who are on the fence about engaging social media communities.
Regarding your point "mini-blogging is a popular activity that seems destined to give way to traditional blogging in the distant future." I argue that "micro-blogging" will become ubiquitous. Done right, use of services such as Twitter become the ideal information management system. We connect our conscious thoughts and desires together. It becomes a hive mind--a phenomenon I term "panconciousness." It is the most efficient way to manage the vast amounts of information avalanching toward us daily.
I completely agree Roger. As a matter of fact, we here at CMSWire utilize a service called Yammer that practically mimics the functionality of Twitter, but it is a closed system designed for corporate use. It is quite fascinating.
All the information I want to retrieve can be found through mini-blogging and communication services that this social media explosion has provided.
Of course, the question is how do enterprises begin to trust services like Twitter when they constantly display a lack of reliability? What happens when the cloud fails? I just had a moment where GrandCentral, a service that routes phone calls to my devices. There have been times when my e-mail provider, Gmail, has suddenly stopped operating as well. It does raise an alarm.
Once cloud computing can demonstrate to enterprise environments that it is fully reliable and secure, I believe adoption will skyrocket. We are beginning to see this, but there is much room for improvement.
As for your comments about information... I've given up on feed reading technology. I constantly feel overloaded, and I see NetNewsWire with over 10,000 unread items. It is shocking. I don't even mess with it. I just stay connected to FriendFeed as my friends post interesting stuff for me to review. I only use RSS to stay on top of content management news.
I think we should call this social information filtering. How the social community as a whole will generally filter out the obvious stuff (e.g. Digg and Reddit) and the community of close friends will highlight information that we will be highly interested (e.g. Twitter and FriendFeed).
Quite interesting developments, and I'm excited to see how far technology can push it.
Very interesting study about the use (and acceleration) of Web-based networking services! Especially telling is the first bullet item, "75% of Internet users participate in social media, whereas only 56% participated in 2007." This is a huge increase.
I also was intrigued by the fact that increases are now being seen in the 33-45 age group.
Perhaps I would need to get the original Forrester report to know the answers to a couple of my follow-up questions:
1. One bullet item reads "48% of respondents have read a blog at least once," but the next reads "69% identified themselves as active “spectators” of blogs, up from 48% the previous year." This would seem contradictory. Is it actually that, of those who had read any blogs at all, 69% called themselves active spectators? That's my assumption.
2. What kind of curve are we seeing for some of these trends? Do we have enough year-to-year data points to see whether we've got a bell curve, for instance? Should we expect diminishing increases as the market approaches a certain saturation point? What would that point be?