Is it ok to trust strangers now?
One of the worlds largest media service firms has just released a study of over 17000 internet users in 29 different countries entitled “When Did We Start Trusting Strangers?” (link goes to pdf). It’s a very lengthy study but touches on many important topics. They did a great job with the design to keep you interested as well.
The study touched on three main points
- The rise of social media
- Digital friends
- Proliferation of influencer channels
They find that social media has grown very quickly and this is because it has become more and more easy for people to become involved in the social web. In the earlier days of the web if you wanted to share your photos or videos with friends you would have to buy a domain, setup web hosting and install a photo gallery… none of which were user friendly for non tech people. Today there are numerous user friendly sites like youtube and flickr that make sharing photos and videos extremely easy.
The digital friends section deals with how people use friends online and stay in touch with them. The study found that 99% use email and a whopping 81% use instant messaging. Another 58% use social networks for communication and another surprising number - 51.3% use VOIP.
It was surprising to see that the US is far behind in terms of average number of contacts on the various platforms. Brazil, China and India have much higher numbers in these fields than the US.
Proliferation of influencer channels discusses how sites are using more and more social features which makes it extremely easy to for consumers to influence each other. From being able to easily recommend products over email or IM to product reviews on the very page you purchase products from it is extremely easy for consumers to pass on their recommendations.
In summary the survey was one of the most in-depth and nicely presented reports I have read on social media and would definately recommend it to any
Tags: business social, social media campaigns, Social Media Marketing