Youth Like Video, Adults Like Photo’s; Social Media Age Differences

The under 25 age group prefers video and adults like photographs better our research finds. Using our monitoring tool and looking at average ages in Social Media profiles, plus language analysis, we wanted to know if video as a medium was popular in the same way across all age groups. Obviously it isn’t. Why? Understanding such preferences can help marketers understand what medium works better for different age groups.

We were somewhat surprised by this finding, given the popularity of video sharing services such as YouTube and MetaCafe. Our findings showed that the older the person, the less likely they are to create and share video. Watching video online is more level across age groups. Of the profiles analyzed we found that less than 10% of those over 35 were likely to create and share their own videos while 40% of those under 30 were likely to create and share a video. Once we go under 20 we see that there is an 80% chance a user will create and share their own video.

When it comes to photos, the over 30 set are more likely to post to photo sharing sites like Flickr or PhotoBucket, while the under 30 groups  are more likely to restrict photo uploading and sharing to their social networks. This is not entirely surprising to most I would suspect, but validating as well.

The over 30 age groups however, will share and watch online video almost on a par with the under 30 segments.

Youth & Social Media in Atlantica

As we’re constantly monitoring Social Media use in the Atlantica region, here we release some high-level findings from this years ongoing research.

We define “youth” as 20 and under in this market. This research comes from a sample population of 1,500 within the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and PEI and the U.S. states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine  and Connecticut.

Social Network: Started out the year as MySpace (as expected) but has seen an increased use of Facebook (by 42% over 2008).

Social Places & Games: Club Penguin was most popular in the 7-12 age range while second was Miniclip and Yahooligans by Yahoo! was a close third for games services. For the 12-16 range we found Our World to be most popular. Picnik proved most popular for photo’s due to the services offered for photo manipulation. YouTube topped for videos, followed by Vimeo as a distant second.

Social Communications: MSN seemed to be the choice for “chatting” with second being eBuddy and GTalk a distant third followed by AIM and ICQ, Mebo was second to eBuddy for connecting multiple services . Controls and some of the features enabled on MSN were the deciding factor for usage. Apple’s iChat barely registered use in the under 20 bracket.

We noted that the under 20 age range for Social Media tools enjoy services that provide creative outlets. Picnik as an example enables a wide range of free editing capabilities before a premium service kicks in. A habit of youth seems to be editing photo’s in a service like Picnik and then sharing them on Facebook or via messenging services.

We found that 53% of females are more active than males, although we were surprised to see such an equal usage whereas in the 20+ range we find women are 65% more active than men in Social Media, specifically Social Networking services.

There was almost no difference in services used between Canada and the U.S. A finding we found encouraging in the sense of cross-border relations as these youth grow up.

The in-depth report has been made available to select clients and is available for $750.

PR Crises and Social Media; What’s Your Plan?

A bad news story for your company hits traditional media. You kick in the standard damage control processes and try to move beyond the issue; it’s always worked before. Except this time a prominent or even not so prominent blogger picks it up…and it spreads. Have the rules changed? Can you move beyond the story like before?

Certainly, except it may take a little longer than before, and there may be “aftershocks”. When the Blogosphere picks up on a story it can suddenly take on a life of its own. Sometimes there’s no real need to respond, other times you must respond. There are ways to manage a crisis point with Social Media, but the issue can stay hot in the Social Media world a little longer.

In most bad news incidents, the best strategy is to acknowledge the issue, state your proposed resolution and then move on to more positive stories, knowing that in traditional media, the story will blow over fairly quickly. Bloggers and microbloggers however, can add their own opinions and what was a small issue spirals out of control. Not responding can make the perceived issue worse and carry on for weeks or months.

Deciding whether or not to respond is something you need to determine with your PR team or Social Media agency. Deciding how you respond is key, along with follow up. Once you’ve said something in the Social Media sphere, it will live on. This means you may be held accountable at a later date as someone may inquire in a few months to see if you’ve lived up to the proposed solution. If not, you’ll suddenly have another crisis, this is what we call “aftershocks.” Developing a good plan for a PR crisis should always include the Social Media angle today.

With Social Media, the vital point to remember is that a story can live on far longer and resurface at any time. Sometimes you can take the high road and not respond, deflection is still very much possible, but going about it is very different in Social Media.

The New Jobs & Titles of Social Media

Social Media has definitively hit business and is slowly working its way into the ranks of  government departments at varying levels. So where are Social Media professionals coming from and what will the requirements be for Social Media professionals?

A brief search of Workopolis and Monster and a couple of other smaller and regionalized online job sites brought up several varying titles such as; Online Communities Coordinator, Manager of Web Communities, Social Media Marketing Manager, Online Communications Officer, Director of Social Media, Social Media Development Manager, Social Media Coordinator and a few others.

Quite a wide variety. I decided to look at the types of companies hiring for these jobs and salary ranges where available. What I found was of 120 jobs offered (USA and Canada) that fit into “Social Media” related, over 80% were in marketing/advertising agencies, the others were a mix of technology and Web companies and only 3 non-technology companies focused on consumer products. No business-to-business and no government. All were looking for some degree of marketing experience or public relations background. One even wanted 8-10 years of Social Media experience (I wish them luck there.) In terms of wages, they were remarkably low. From the low 20′s to mid 30′s for someone who’s going to be speaking on behalf of the company and its brand? All reported to a director or VP, and there were no senior management jobs available in Social Media (that I could find anyway.)

While this is all very anecdotal and by no means proper in-depth research, it would seem to indicate some interesting trends taking place. While businesses recognize the need for engaging in Social Media, the responsibility is being left to people with relatively minimal experience in the professional world. It would seem that senior management feels Social Media is just a “channel” and mostly for marketing (which in many cases is correct.) It would also seem the remuneration is fairly low in some cases where an individual has an incredible amount of responsibility communicating a company brand.

So we’ve seen Social Media start to ease into the corporate world through low-level functional jobs. Titles remain somewhat vague as do overall responsibilties. It would seem that Social Media is gaining traction, but in what way? In challenging financial times when many companies are laying off people, we’re seeing a whole new element of jobs opening up. New positions with previously undefined responsibilities means finding budget and defining purpose to organizational objectives – no small task at the best of times.

What role do you think Social Media will play in terms of jobs in the future? Is there a place for Social Media professionals beyond just marketing and public relations? How about with Human Resources? Will Social Media ever gain a seat at the Executive Table? Should it? A lot of questions remain.

Is There Enough Social Media Mass to Matter?

All other issues around metrics, guidelines and methods aside, perhaps a key underlying question around Social Media might be; is there enough people participating in a way that matters to corporations and governments? Part two of that question might be; and is it local enough?

Social Media is part of our business, so of course our objective is to say “yes” to both posed questions. Saying “no” would be shooting ourselves in the foot. Our position is “yes” because we’ve done the research to validate our business case (we’ve identified some niches the competition hasn’t, but we can’t say anything yet on that front.) So why do we pose that there is enough mass? And what do others in Social and Traditional Media think?

Obtaining precise numbers on blogs and microblog usage is challenging at the very least. We can say there’s roughly 50 million blogs and upwards of 200 Million+ people active on Social Networks, blogs and microblogs on a regular basis. Then there’s mobile social networking, where research firm eMarketer estimates roughly 2.7% of Americans use mobile Social Network apps, and our research indicates about 1% of Canadians (Canada has the worlds highest mobile data fees, reducing uptake significantly) use mobile Social Network apps. All of these areas are growing in usage. There are also 40+ companies that are active in the Social Media monitoring market, indicating a growing market segment. of those 40, roughly 95% are less than two years old. Suggesting an early-stage market.

Quickly and anecdotaly then, we can conclude that the mass is there. People are using Social Media and everything points to an increasing use. Patterns are still developing, acquisitions starting to occur and battles are raging over “measurement” and “monetizing” of Social Media. But that’s another topic.

So then, are people participating in a way that matters to businesses or governments? Given the CNN/YouTube Debates in the U.S., the forcing of Rogers to lower it’s iPhone pricing in Canada in less than a week through Social Media pressure, the CEO of JetBlue losing his job due to Social Media reaction – all point to evidence that yes, there is enough mass. Governments and businesses, along with other institutions are justified in their growing concern.

Is it “local” enough to matter to smaller businesses and municipal governments? Soon we think. As “local search” improves and newspapers move more services on line, locally Social Media will begin to matter more and more. There may be other reasons local social media matters as well and we welcome views on this. So yes, the evidential actions and supporting usage statistics would say – Social Media matters. The tipping point has been reached.