Social media is now mainstream and the growth is in real-time interactions
13th January 2011, 03:48 pm by Matt Rhodes
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The latest wave of the GlobalWebIndex report from Trendstream shows that use of social media among consumers has become mainstream. In the most active markets that they explored (Brazil and India) almost 90% of consumers are taking part in social media on at least a monthly basis. Even the least active markets they explored (Spain and the Netherlands) had more than 50% of consumers taking part in social media on a regular basis. This is the third wave of the report and is based on a panel of 51,000 users across 12 countries.
The clear message from the report is that social media is now mainstream across all of these markets, even those where consumers are least active in social media. It is also a reminder that in terms of proportion of consumers who are active in social media, the leading countries are not those that you might expect. The US comes 5th in the report and the UK 7th.
Across the board, the change in behaviour is not just uptake but also the rise of real-time social media. Micro-blogging (think Twitter), social network profiles and commenting are among the fastest growing activities and are all examples of people interacting with each other in real-time rather than contributing content that is primarily for people to find and use at a later date. They are providing real-time opinions and real-time information that others are then interacting with and using.
And whilst the growth of social media shows greatest penetration in markets like Brazil, India, it is in the UK, US and Canada that real-time interactions are strongest. This may be that Twitter and other similar tools have grown more quickly in English-speaking markets, but given the depth of involvement in markets such as Brazil, India, Russia and China it is to these markets that we should look for innovations through 2011 in the real-time social web.
You can read the latest GlobalWebIndex report below:
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Willis eTech:
Thanks for sharing this information. It’s nice to get this type of insight. @willisetech on Twitter
13 January 2011, 4:10 pmTim:
Ok, so it’s a pretty limited sample size, but in the UK, I dropped two emails to Vodafone about an issue in the last two months – still no reply. Here in India I mention Vodafone in a Tweet, they add me, then @reply saying if I DM my mobile number they’ll look into the issue.
Maybe I’m reading too much into a one-off incident, but possibly cultural differences come into play here. I often suspect too many UK brands of joining Twitter/Facebook/[add latest Social Media site here] because they feel they should – not because they actually understand the strength of the platform….which is to be able to interact with their customers. They end up using it to broadcast, not interact. Maybe Brazilian and Indian companies understand that more?
13 January 2011, 5:56 pmRobert:
How is that possible: (Brazil and India) almost 90% of consumers are taking part in social media on at least a monthly basis. Even the least active markets they explored (Spain and the Netherlands) had more than 50% of consumers taking part in social media”. In the Netherlands internet penetration is almost 100%, Local social network Hyves is 3 times bigger than Facebook and every cosnumer is part of either Hyves or Facebook, so that makes almost 100%! How can India be relatively more social than NL??
16 January 2011, 10:59 amHubert Kozloski:
You’re polishing yor skill as a writer. Carry on!
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