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In preparing some presentations about measuring social media internally and externally, I ran across some statistics that might put your own audiences’ social media usage into better perspective.
While the percentage of online time spent conducting searches (5%) and commerce (18%) stayed the same in 2007 vs. 2006, the proportion of time reading content online (like news and other information we searched for) went up from 44% to 49%. The percentage of time spent communicating online (e-mail, social networking) went down from 33% to 29%. (Source: Online Publishers Association, www.online-publishers.org)
However, the total number of hours spent online each month increased by 12% during that same period. When you multiply the percentages by the actual hours each year, it seems we’ve spent a lot more hours reading content online, but nearly the same number of hours communicating online. That’s bad news for printed newspapers and magazines without an online business strategy.
About 120,000 blogs are added every day, according to Technorati founder David Sifry, and 13 million blogs have been updated in the last 60 days (January 2008).
However, only 9% of internet users read blogs frequently, and 66% never do, according to a recent Gallup poll. That should give us some context for what our expectations should be for other people reading our own blogs.
On a daily basis, more teens spend time with friends (31%) than send text messages (27%) or send e-mails (14%). The percentage of teens with online access who created at least one type of online content went up from 57% to 64% between 2004 and 2007; blogging went up from 19% to 28%.
And, by the way, girls were far more likely than boys to blog and share pictures, but boys were more likely to share videos. (Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, Dec. 2007. www.pewinternet.org/)
See you next time.
Angela Sinickas
President, Sinickas Communications, Inc.
measurement@melcrum.com
How to use Social Media to Engage Employees Social media is changing the way we communicate. The new tools and technologies represent opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing and engagement that just cannot be ignored. How to use social media to engage employees is the ground-breaking report on integrating social media tools into your communications. This report contains in-depth case studies, expert opinion, practitioner insight, tips, tools and more. |
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