Guest Post by: Monica Esposito
One of the highlights of London Social Media Week 2011 was a brilliant presentation by Tom Smith, “The Global State of Social Media in 2011,” the “most detailed global survey on consumer internet behaviours, motivations and attitudes ever conducted.” It was based on research from”71K surveys, 4 waves and 23 countries” since September 2009.
As someone who reads tech and social media blogs daily, I wasn’t expecting any groundbreaking revelations. How mistaken I was.
Of course, there were some predictable observations: the people most involved in social media are in the 16-24 age gap (the “digital natives”) and employed in marketing/advertising/media; Twitter focuses on celebrities not other consumers; micro blogging and social networks are on the rise compared to blogs, forums and chat rooms; and privacy remains the biggest concern for users when joining social media websites.
However, some of the presentation’s findings were extremely interesting and unexpected: the most active countries in social media are Malaysia, Brazil and India; and even more surprising that the most popular form of social engagement in Asia is blogging, with China, South Korea and India on top. Tom Smith also denied the myth that Facebook is the principal social network everywhere; local brands have in fact been demonstrated to dominate in Russia, Netherlands, Japan and China.
You can find Tom Smith’s presentation here: http://www.slideshare.net/Tomtrendstream/social-media-week-global-state-of-social-media-in-2011
Original Post: http://www.marketsentinel.com/blog/2011/02/the-global-state-of-social-media-in-2011/
