A new global survey on consumer use of social media

Will social media become a broadcast channel?

We've reviewed the implications of previous reports by GlobalWebIndex; they're a really good source to inform your approach.

In their latest report, GlobalWebIndex revealed that 517 million individuals have created an account on Twitter, half actively used the platform in the past month, and half of those users had posted a tweet. On Facebook, 22 percent of the 845 million users that had visited Facebook in the past month did not make a single contribution.

We can also see the growing importance of Google+ and how social networks are often accessed on mobile or tablet.

Overall, the report suggests that consumers are moving focus in their use of social media, from publishing to the world and communicating with friends or peers, to digesting content from trusted sources.

Is this a maturing of social media usage?

“As users become more passive over time and increasingly turn to people in the public eye or well-known organisations for interesting content, social will increasingly become a broadcast channel.” GlobalWebIndex

The report suggests that...

• "Digital" is dead

I've said this before so agree entirely, digital media is engrained into modern culture and no longer exists as a channel, it's part of what we are in terms of research, communications, interaction and purchase. Marketers need to think more like a consumer, and less like a channel-orientated broadcaster of messages.

• Social media connects the internet

Social media is now so ingrained in our world, 90% of all Internet users have at least one social account. Yet only 70% of them have posted or shared content in the last month.

• Emerging markets are responsible for social media growth

Countries like Brazil and India are largely responsible for social and especially Facebook growth, interestingly there's a usage decline in mature markets such as the US. Facebook is on track to hit two billion users by the end of 2014. For a number of reasons, notwithstanding the ban on Facebook and Google+ (amongst otters) China remains a country requiring a separate social strategy if you want to reach consumers there. With 53 million active users, Pinterest growth us truly global, with only 16 million of these users come from the US, in contrast China has 11 million and India 8 million.

• Photo sharing is activity #1

Once again we see that sharing photos on Facebook outranks messaging, posting updates or sharing links. Photo sharing is the second most important activity on Twitter.

The opportunity?

It's important information and hard to know what we do about this right now, what's most clear is that the internet (due to increasing socialisation and globalisation) is continuing to evolve at a frightening rate, and marketers need to keep abreast of the picture.

The opportunity remains originating relevant content that the so-called passive users are able to digest, and the more active users can interact and share, it's this further revealing of different persona and user types that holds the key - as in the real world, human behaviour differs significantly. If only it were as simple as targeting "Facebook users."