Wave 4 is the latest in a series of reports from Universal McCann (ummm… the fourth one… see what they did there?) about how people are using social networks, especially in relation to aggregating digital content together that they’ve created – like vids and pics, newsfeeds and chats, etc. This reflects my experience – all my specialist online storage facilities (flickr, blip.tv) send feeds of my stuff to my Facebook profile, which in turn updates my Friendfeed, which in turn updates my blog. As far as Twitter and my delicious bookmarks go, those feeds update everything!! Sometimes I read my Tweets on Facebook before I’ve even tweeted them! [Joke].
Anyway – the report indicates:
nearly two-thirds of internet users around the globe have managed their personal profiles.
- 71.1% have visited a friend’s social network page.
- In the U.S. 60% have managed their profiles in the last six months, up nearly 50% from 43.2% the previous year.
- 76% of social network members upload photos, up from 45% the previous year.
- 33% of social network members upload videos, up from 16.9% the previous year.
- In the Philippines, more than 98% of active internet users* have watched video online; in Korea, Spain, and the U.S., the figure is more than 8 out of 10.
- The number of people reading blogs has started to stagnate, with 71% of active internet users reading blogs, up from only 70% the previous year.
- 17% of active internet users access online content through mobile devices as well as home, work, or school computers.
- 83% of active internet users view video online.
So that leaves cultural organisations with some decent evidence that investing in social media is worthwhile, particularly if you can be up-to-the-minute with your news and offers, and porous in your attitude to sharing content with users who are increasingly acting like online digital content experts. If they’re free and easy about letting it all hang out, you should too. It all started here, remember 🙂