The Wonderful World of Social Networks
Once upon a time there was Ryze. Then there was LinkedIn. Then Facebook. Now it seems that every time you turn around, someone is inviting you to join a new social networking site. Deciding which ones to join and how much time to devote to this type of activity can be a real challenge, so in my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey, I asked participants how often they visit the sites I’ve heard the most about, and whether they regularly use any others. Here’s what I found out.
|
Do you use… |
Yes |
No |
|
|
|
77% |
19% |
|
|
|
64% |
29% |
|
|
MySpace |
28% |
62% |
|
|
Ryze |
17% |
73% |
|
|
Plaxo Pulse |
16% |
75% |
|
|
Naymz |
12% |
78% |
|
|
Spock |
10% |
78% |
|
|
Fast Pitch |
5% |
84% |
|
|
|
Other |
14% |
86% |
The numbers total more than 100%, because many people use more than one site.
It is not surprising that Facebook showed the highest number of users, considering that it was one of the main vehicles I used to get the word out about the survey. It‘s interesting to note that LinkedIn is the only other one to even come close to that number of users. What is also interesting, is the reported frequency of usage:
|
1+ times /week |
2-4 times /month |
<1 time /month |
||
|
|
46% |
14% |
17% |
|
|
|
23% |
19% |
22% |
|
|
MySpace |
9% |
4% |
15% |
|
|
Ryze |
6% |
3% |
8% |
|
|
Plaxo Pulse |
6% |
5% |
5% |
|
|
Naymz |
8% |
1% |
3% |
|
|
Spock |
8% |
0% |
2% |
|
|
Fast Pitch |
2% |
0% |
3% |
Facebook and LinkedIn are the only two that showed a relatively high number of weekly users, yet even there, Facebook is showing twice as many weekly visitors. Is it because people use Facebook for both business and personal reasons, or are there other factors at play?
Participants who answered "Other" were asked to specify which other sites they use, and the following answers were submitted:
|
|
5 |
|
|
Ning |
2 |
|
|
Tagged |
1 |
|
|
Fotolog |
1 |
|
|
Nobosh |
1 |
|
|
Change.org |
1 |
|
|
DFALink |
1 |
|
|
BizNik |
1 |
|
|
LawLink |
1 |
|
|
digg |
1 |
|
|
blogger |
1 |
|
|
VANA |
1 |
|
|
Merchant Circle |
1 |
Some of these sites don’t really fall under the same category as those listed in the survey, but I have included the information here to show how different people interpreted the question.
For some more interesting statistics about social networking, check out James Burchill’s recent blog post on Social Media and the Interactive Marketing Conference.
*This post was featured in the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival #7 and the LinkedIn Bloggers Carnival: July Edition.
Janet,
What a wonderful resource. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype about Social Media. Your survey gives some useful information we can use when deciding which network to try.
Thanks for the info.
Andrea
Comment by Andrea J. Stenberg — June 20, 2008 @ 11:38 am
MerchantCircle recently crossed 500,000 members. We’re proud to help local businesses acquire customers by offering an alternative to over-priced, ineffective offline marketing channels. We’ve been interviewing our merchants in all 50 states – you can read about their MerchantCircle experience here: www.visualcv.com/merchantcircle.
We’re committed to providing every local business a web presence, easy-to-use marketing tools and a platform for connecting with other merchants, all for free. As always, please email any questions or concerns to support@merchantcircle.com and we will respond as soon as possible.
Comment by Kevin L. — June 27, 2008 @ 7:53 pm