Universal McCann’s annual social media tracker Wave has mapped key changes in consumer uptake and usage of social media platforms for the past four years. Wave 4, released recently, reveals dramatic changes in the way that consumers are using the internet to create and share their thoughts, pictures and videos.
The Universal McCann (UM) research study reveals that globally social networks are becoming the dominant platform for content creation and content sharing.
After four surveys of active internet users—those who use the internet every day or every other day—showing impressive growth for all types of social media, consumers are starting to focus their digital life around the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Orkut.
It’s not that consumers are cutting back on blogging or sharing images it’s just that they are increasingly opting to do it via their social network page rather than the likes of Flickr and Blogger.
76% of social network users, for example, upload photos, up from 45% in Wave 3, and 33% upload videos compared to 16.9% last time around.
The heavy and varied usage of social networks has proven that these sites are no fad. Not only have 96% of social networkers visited a friends’ social network page but nearly two-thirds of all active internet users have spent time managing their own profile.
Another key change to note has been the expansion of video usage, with significant increases both in the number of social networkers and bloggers uploading video but also in terms of the number of the active internet users watching audio-visual content.
Key statistics from the report:
- The total estimated global active internet audience is now 625 million people
- Mobile internet usage has now reached nearly a fifth of all active internet users. Seventeen percent now access internet on the move as well as at home, work or college
- Widgets continue to thrive with 34% of social network users installing them for their own use and 24% installing them to impress visitors to their profile page
Glen Parker, Research Director at UM EMEA, comments that “Social media is a very fast-evolving landscape and one that’s taking an increasingly important role in consumers’ digital lives. Brands that want to engage with consumers in these spaces need to understand how and where and why they are using the many different platforms that enable content creation and sharing.”
It’s All Going Social
UM concludes that every element of digital media is becoming socialised, providing marketers with new ways to engage a target audience like never before.
Wave 4 shows that social consumption of digital content is either already highly penetrated among active internet users or still growing rapidly. It also sheds new light on consumer motivations for social media behaviour. Through the research UM have observed that the desire to belong to something is as motivating as the desire to communicate and express one’s self.
UM believes that the engagement opportunities of social media are deeper than those of traditional mass media and that the power of social amplification is also much stronger.
The UM 10-step programme for successful social media marketing:
- Listen to/observe what the target audience is doing in social media
- Create a “social object” that is relevant to the brand and of genuine interest
- Segment the target into tribes. Give them something they can join.
- Allow them to engage via their preferred platform of choice—create multiple interfaces to your community
- Make the experience better when shared
- Optimise your content for sharing—particularly via newsfeeds and Twitter
- Use paid-for media to get the ball rolling
- Take advantage of extreme targeting offered by social networks
- Make sure you have the resources to manage your community management and refresh the content.
- Track the results and optimise where necessary
About Wave 4
UM questioned 22,729 active internet users in 38 countries between November 2008 and March 2009 for Wave 4.
Tags: flickr, key statistics, mobile internet, online video, social networks, Universal McCann, video usage, widgets
