Social Networlds

With an incredible one out of every thirteen humans now defined as an active internet user (that’s someone who uses the internet at least every other day), our friends at Universal McCann have just released their 4th ‘Power to the People’ survey. This survey looks at the use of social media across the globe and is the biggest survey of its kind.

This report shows that Social Networks are the fastest growing of any online social media tools, now almost two in three of all active internet users have joined a social networking site (64% in the UK). Whilst a couple of years ago we may have expected the popularity of such platforms to wane with time, actually this could not be further from the truth.

Not only do we regularly update our own social networking profiles, we also love to visit the profiles of our friends and families. Globally 71.1% of all of active internet users have visited a friends’ social network page (64% in the UK). These numbers continue to grow and as yet show little sign of abating, and 17% now use their mobile phones to access and update sites. Social networks quite literally never leave our sides.

This continued rise in popularity may be in part attributed to the increased functionality of these platforms; it is now increasingly common for users to upload photos and videos to their personal profiles. Of course it can come as no surprise that eventually social media platforms would begin to be rationalised. No longer do individuals have to go to separate sites to upload photos and or videos, blog, and talk to their friends, they can now do this all from the same platform. Different social media channels are converging as life online gets simpler.

Social networks are set to stay as a medium of choice for consumers, however many brands have yet to leverage their power. Most importantly we must remember that consumers do not use these platforms to engage with brands, they are there to engage with their social group. Brands that don’t help or worse, get in the way of this will not just be ignored, they may be punished. On the flip side however, if brands create interesting and helpful applications or objects which enhance the online networking experience, they stand to gain more than they will from many traditional media channels. Nothing is more popular with consumers than things which allow them to bond with their friends over shared experiences.

Added to this, social networks are developing methodology allowing for extreme targeting of the consumer alongside high quality tracking and measuring capabilities. This makes social networks a highly accountable and dynamic environment, ultimately giving you control of who you talk to and when.

Social networking is the future, are you ready?