Is everybody really on Facebook?
An ever increasing share of marketing dollars is flowing to Social Media sites. Because, every news story is telling marketers that the world is on Facebook or MySpace, or Bebo, or Friendster, or Hi5, or LiveJournal. And, it’s true that nearly everyone has a Social Media account. But having an account on a Social Media site and being an active user are two very different things.
Rapleaf, an innovative company that helps companies utilize Social Media in the research and marketing programs recently did an analysis on data for 31 million people who have at least 1 friend on a Social media site. Click here for the complete report.
But, while Rapleaf’s recent press release focused on comparing the numbers for Men vs. Women; I am awestruck by one very simple statistic. About 50% of the “Social Media Users” have 10 or less friends. Now, anyone who actually uses Facebook or MySpace knows that you can gather 10 friends in about 90 seconds. So, to me, this is another way of saying that half of the Social Media users - are Fakes. And the numbers of fakes are surprisingly similar for Men vs. Women.
| Women | Men | |||
| Count | Count | |||
| 1 - 10 friends | 8,112,070 | 50% | 7,350,751 | 52% |
| 11-20 friends | 1,452,552 | 9% | 1,266,455 | 9% |
| 21-30 friends | 809,235 | 5% | 703,960 | 5% |
| 31-40 friends | 583,339 | 4% | 499,574 | 4% |
| 41-50 friends | 469,606 | 3% | 396,328 | 3% |
| 50-100 friends | 1,593,346 | 10% | 1,303,557 | 9% |
| 100-1,000 friends | 3,336,626 | 20% | 2,655,297 | 19% |
As only those very few avid readers of my blog know, a couple of weeks ago I posted an article titled “Myths of Social Media Marketing“. In which I detail how Marketers are spending more and more on Social Media - but with very little faith that it is effective.
To me, these two postings illustrate the marketing world we live in. Marketers are so confused as to how to spend their dollars, so unfamiliar with this new landscape, and so afraid of missing a new trend; that they are happy to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a media which they don’t believe works and in which half of the members don’t actually use the service.
But this is not really very surprising. The world of traditional advertising is being destroyed and no real substitute has emerged. Newspapers can’t sell ad space and can’t charge enough for web ads. Broadcasters continue to charge millions for ads even though everyone Tivo’s right through them. Everyone has AdSense on their blog (except me) and NO ONE is making any money except Google.
No one knows what the new paradigm will look like. Online - offline - mobile - cloud? But I know one thing, there will always be ads getting in my way - and someone will always find a way to charge for them.
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5 Comments
1. rapleaf surveyed 31 million people? how is that even possible?
2. do you have a link to the rapleaf report you can share?
3. do you that the 20% of people fully engaged in social media sites are probably good marketing targets?
I think the term they should have used is “analyzed data from 31 million members”. My understanding is that they have joint agreements with these sites to use them as research sources. Take a look at this link for more details. http://business.rapleaf.com/company_press_2008_06_18.html
Jacob, this is a great post.
We have so many clients who feel like they need to “get into the game” of social marketing, particularly Facebook. And many of them would do well to strongly consider it. However, there are some cases where you ask probing questions about what the client would like to accomplish, and we see other marketing strategies that better address those objectives.
I do agree that Facebook and others certainly provide opportunities to marketers who are clear about the types of results they are looking for. Visa, for instance, has spent a lot of time developing its Small Business Network (http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/sign_up) on Facebook, and they have embraced the “social” aspect of social marketing. This means they are comfortable being seen as an aggregator of members and content, and they believe that the goodwill from the added value these small business owners receive from joining the network will translate into future revenue opportunities.
Our company also embraces the oldest form of social media around: Word of Mouth
Sherman
I’m with you. I’d trade 1 word of mouth for 100 Diggs.
Thanks for the great comments.
JB
I really liked the book Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. There are two really important points that it makes about social media that everyone should remember:
1) The title of the book itself is Groundswell, which refers to the idea that people may be talking about your brand already. Are you listening?
2) If you join the social media world determine what you are trying to resolve given how people are talking about you, and THEN choose a strategy wile keeping your business goals in mind.
These are very key points before engaging in social media.