Social Media still on rise: comparative global study

9May08

Universal McCann has recently published its comparative study following Social Media trends by three waves: September 2006 (Wave 1), June 2007 (Wave 2) March 2008 (Wave 3).

Research highlights:

1. Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.

2. Asian markets (not including Japan) are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region

3. All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three
Waves: Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31%
penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3

4. Social Networks: 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the
number one platform for creating and sharing content: 55% of users have
uploaded photos, 22% of users have uploaded videos

5. The widget economy – 23% of social network users have installed an
application – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog
templates

6. Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to
traditional media (184m bloggers world-wide, China has the largest
blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers) – 73% have read a
blog, 45% have started a blog

7. Social media has strong impacts over brand’s reputation – 34% post
opinions about products and brands on their blog – 36% think more
positively about companies that have blogs

Methodology:
Universal McCann Wave 3 survey was conducted on 17,000 internet users in 29 countries and was completed in March 2008.

Popularity: 1%