Pews Study Social Network 2012-2013
Social media
Still wondering how to reach your target market? If in the US it seems clear that social media could be a clear winner. But not everything is quite as straight forward in the social networking space. Interesting results from a recent Pew Research study throws up some interesting trends.
Facebook is still the winner
Not really surprising is the fact that Facebook is still the clear winner. By far. 71% of US adults check Facebook regularly. In fact often more than once a day. It has been said that the younger generation is leaving Facebook in droves. Apparently it’s not fun if their moms and grandmothers are their friends. Bit of a deterrent it seems.
Young people appear to be using Instagram more to share photos. Does that mean that younger citizens can’t even be bothered to write short messages anymore? Moving from texting to photo sharing? Probably not. It might just an additional form of sharing your news.
Pinterest & LinkedIn increasing users numbers
Both of these social media communities are winning user numbers. Of course one needs to remember that copious number of members do not necessarily equate to daily visits and LinkedIn in particular is not visited as often as for instance Pinterest. LinkedIn is trying to address this.
Where is Twitter?
Twitter increased its numbers but not at the same rate as Pinterest for instance. And in fact Twitter seems to be stagnating somewhat. That’s not due to Twitter sitting back. In fact Twitter is pushing to make its service more interesting and varied introducing video and photo sharing to its mix.
Let’s not forget Instagram
This could possibly be the dark horse. As much as this may be a social media tool for the younger generation to stay connected it could still find itself pushing into the limelight and possibly even taking over Twitter’s space.
Overall there seems to be a fairly fluid situation within social media. But perhaps one thing that marketers might like to consider is that massive numbers might not be the answer. Perhaps its back to segmentation or even personalisation. With the possibilities that technology now offers, speaking directly to your customer about what she wants whether via mobile device or email rather than sending generic messages via mass social media platforms could indeed be the future.
