The vertiginous growth in social media must inevitably be followed by a period of cooling, and then stagnation. So says Forrester Research in a new report, Fight Social Media Stagnation.Forrester estimates that 58% of US online adults use/visit social networking sites monthly, compared to 90% using email monthly, and 37% watching 'any type of video'. However, Forrester believes this 58% is saturation level for social activities: beyond this are online users who are by their nature are unlikely to engage in chit-chat or create content. This is what the analyst Augie Ray says:
"Saturation of a behaviour doesn't always mean that 100% of people engage in that behaviour. In the real world, a minority of individuals are creators -- writing, composing, or snapping pictures for anything other than personal enjoyment. It is not surprising that social Creator behaviours plateau well below 100%. In 2010, 23% of US online adults exhibit Creator behaviour, and unless human nature changes, we won't see rapid increases in these behaviours in the future."
It's unlikely another wave of rapid growth in social
media will be fuelled by tapping into older users because privacy
becomes a barrier. For 18-29 year olds, only 30% are concerned with
privacy: for 30-43 year olds, it rises to 33%, 44-53 year olds it is 39%
and for 54-64 year olds it tops out at 50%. Privacy is more than
security: it's a belief that your life is private and should not
necessarily be displayed to all and sundry.
Facebook
has encouraged more people to be creators (i.e. contributors) to social
media rather than just being consumers of it (i.e. watching YouTube
videos or reading blogs). The more we use Facebook, the less time we
have available for other user-generated content or web browsing
activity. According to Forrester:
"The only Spectator behaviour that demonstrated growth in the past year was reading other people's updates on Twitter."
So what nuggets from this research can feed into corporate social media strategy?
Influencing the influencers:
Forrester suggests that because we cannot expect to create, or have new
influencers emerge, we need to tap into the ones with existing mass
influence. Forrester notes:
"Eighty percent of the influence impressions and posts about products and service come from just 16% of consumers in the US."
Don't just listen, engage: while
more companies are listening to social media sentiment (or paying PR
agencies to do it), too few are actually engaging with those social
media users who are commenting on them. The best companies use this
opportunity to start a dialogue, particularly those with negative
opinions.
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