The state of social media and what it means to you
- Mon, January 16 2012
- Filed under: Social networking and web 2.0
I’m a big fan of the work done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Last week they released the mobile study I covered here. Last month, Mary Madden at Pew shared some fascinating data on social media. She agreed to my posting her deck here for your benefit.
Here are some highlights:
*The cat photo, of course
*The fact that American Internet use has leveled off at 74%
*Mobile is at an inflection point
*The most valued aspect of social media is the ability to connect to those close to us
*Facebook reigns
To me the biggest surprise was how high school buddies represent such a huge proportion of Facebook friends!
So what does all this mean to us? Remember:
*Social media is worth using as an engagement or relationship building tool—that’s why people are there using it - but not as a self-promotion tool, ever.
*While it’s early days, you need to start thinking about mobile (I’m at work writing a white paper on it, which will come out next month, so stay tuned).
Comments
Katya, how would you frame peer-to-peer fundraising as it relates to this statement:
“Social media is worth using as an engagement or relationship building tool—that’s why people are there using it - but not as a self-promotion tool, ever.”
What are the accepted practices for reaching out to friends on FB to promote something like a charity event such as a fun run?
Marla, great question. Let me clarify: for nonprofits, social media is a relationship building tool. For individuals with friends and family in their social media circles, those relationships already exist. That’s why it’s so effective when people ask people they know to support their favorite causes online. That ask is rooted in a strong relationship. For nonprofits, it’s not the same to just blast out an ask on Facebook - there have to be the relationships there in the first place for that to be reasonable and effective behavior. From the nonprofit perspective, the organization must build relationships first.