Social Media Usage shifts to Contect Distribution

According to eMarketer, the number of Facebook users in the US will increase 13.4% this year. That is after a successful growth run of 38.6% in 2010 and a 90.3% rise in 2009. The rate of adult Twitter user adoption has similarly begun to plateau, dropping from 293.1% growth in 2009 to 26.3% this year and still slowing. In many developing countries, these and other networks are seeing their audience growth taper off as most new users come from other countries such as the BRIC nations and Indonesia.

Throughout more advanced countries, behavior has shifted after spending years on the sites. According to the GlobalWebIndex Wave 5 Trends report, social network usage growth has all but stopped among 16 to 24 year-olds in the US and only in in a few countries where it’s actually declining.

Among those who remain on Facebook, GlobalWebIndex reports, declines were detected in activities participation including messaging with friends, sending digital gifts, installing applications and joining groups between July 2009 and June 2011. These activities appear to be decreasing faster in the US than worldwide and are often decreasing even further among college-educated US users under the age of 30.

Meanwhile, on microblogs like Twitter, the heaviest users are focused on disseminating content. Links to other microblogs, personal photos, and links to videos and news stories were the top subjects of status updates on these real-time oriented social sites among frequent users. Other than personal photos, these all relate to content created by others, while most content creation activities scored lower.

When these users are asked what they want from brands, consumers ask for knowledge and among younger adults, entertainment. Brands have an opportunity to use the transmission-oriented social media landscape to disseminate valuable content to followers—who in turn are hungry for interesting and entertaining content to transmit.

September 17, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments