It's interesting to see that while many don't know what social networking is, we're all doing it! In a post by Scott Monty, 58% of 18-65 year olds interviewed across 17 markets did not know what Social Networking was. These are the results from a recent Synovate study also reported on by Emarketer.
Am I surprised? Not really. I don't think my mother or any of my non new-media friends know the term while we're all using social networks.
Even more interesting is the penetration of the different networks across the globe:
From a personal perspective, I have family, friends and associates spread across the world and many on different networks. In The Netherlands, I continually get Hyves requess (I lived there for 10 years), however being active on LinkedIn and Facebook doesn't leave me with much bandwidth for yet another social networks. Lately, I've also been meeting folks from Switzerland, Gemany and Austria. Am I on Xing? No. Will I subscribe to Xing? Not likely.
The foundation of social networking is not the presence but the participation. This participation requires actively logging in to read/post/forward/watch/write etc. I can barely keep up with Facebook! How many times has someone told me something about their personal life to which I've reacted with great surprise ... only to have them respond nonchalantly "well, I did announce it on Facebook!". Who finds the time to login daily or check out the photo albums of their 300 friends?
The implication for advertisers and commercial opportunities in this space is clear. For multinational campaigns, you need to include a variety of social networks in your strategy. It's not a once-size-fits-all solution alas. Forget partnering with MySpace for your global campaign! You'll only reach Bulgarians ... and Americans, of course.
It will be interesting to see in the next 5-10 years which of these networks are still around or if people will defect to other networks. If Facebook keep changing their interface, it may just happen even sooner.
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