FreshNetworks Blog

A report from Synovate, a market research firm, suggests that more than half of adults across the world don’t know what a social network is. The study was based on surveys with 13,000 people between 18 and 65 in 17 countries* and investigated online behaviour and attitudes.

Of all the findings, one that I have seen reported a few times is the figure that 42% of respondents said they knew what social networks are. This leaves 58% who either responded ‘No’ (they don’t know what social networks are) or ‘Don’t know’ (they’re not sure). Without access to the actual wording of the question it is difficult to know for sure, but we can say that more than half of adults in the survey were not confident in their knowledge of what a social network is. They might not know at all or they might just not be sure.

There is some variance by nation, with 89% of Dutch respondents and 70% of Americans knowing what a social network is, much higher than the overall average. This means that in some regions the numbers must have been much lower. I would be interested to compare these country-by-country numbers with both internet access rates and actual membership of a social network. I would be interested in seeing if we could identify a correlation between access, awareness and membership and expect that in areas with high access have high awareness and vice-versa.

Overall membership in the Synovate survey stood at 26% of all adults (so about six out of every ten adults who know what social networks are). Again there is a variance between countries with high membership rates (the Netherlands again at 49% and the United Arab Emirates at 46%) and those with lower rates. Such variance is not to be surprised and, to some extent, is structural in the nature of the networks themselves. They grow and become more popular based on the network effect, so in some countries we would expect to see more people joining because more of their friends have. It is probably just that the UAE and Netherlands are more socially connected or areas where networking is more important than you find elsewhere.

So what do we learn from this survey. The figures are useful to have. It does not surprise me that a relatively large proportion of people don’t know what social networking is. In the UK only about 70% of people have access to the internet, and it would be unrealistic to expect those with no access to the internet to have paid much attention to what online social networks are. The analysis of access, awareness and membership would certainly help to make our understanding of these figures more clear and informed.

But with more than one in every four adults in the 17 markets studied a member of a social network, one thing is clear – they are a real and powerful resource for marketers and brands and the need for brands to engage people online will continue to grow.

* Countries in the study: Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, UAE, USA