Comments on: Social Networking Research: 99% of Your Audience Are On Them, Still Need More Convincing?

By: PLANETwebfoot @ Social Network Software

PLANETwebfoot @ Social Network Software — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:30:37 +0000

Excellent article. As for your “Now what?” question, alot of business have taken the idea of social networking one step further. By taking the knowledge that almost 99% of their target market are comfortable on social networks they are building smaller niche social networking websites that cater directly to their audience and play to their comfort zone. Interesting times we live in!

By: Now You Can Embed Your Interactive Campus Map in Facebook! | nuCloud

Now You Can Embed Your Interactive Campus Map in Facebook! | nuCloud — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:11:26 +0000

[...] because we feel this is a big deal for colleges and universities. As recent data has shown 99% of 18-24 year olds are on social networks. As you all know, for most institutes of higher education this is the target audience for at [...]

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:13:07 +0000

I have been looking at social networking sites for the past two years in terms of a marketing tool. I had a small business where I needed to meet with clients. Of course friends and family were the initial contacts for business, but with the popularity of social networking websites like Zovue.com, I saw that a tremendous opportunity existed.

Having 500 friends in your online social network is like having free paid advertising. I have seen people online that I never would have expected. They range from kids of my firends to grandparents of friends. I can set my privacy settings (at least in Zovue.com, anyway) to choose how close people have to be to see my content. I keep my photos set to friends of friends because I want some visiblity but not total celebrity status(again a Zovue setting.)

I think that everyone must know that social networking is at least a good place to start what I would call “targeted mass marketing”.

On a side note, Zovue is actually a social shopping website as well. It incorporates an online shopping mall section and members can sell their products online too – it’s totally easy!

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:23:12 +0000

Personally i am on the social networking site http://www.zovue.com and i agree with you that almost everyone nowadays has a internet profile.

I guess the question is, where do we go from here. If everyone is wired on the internet, what will happen to TV, magazines and books in the next 20 years?

I kinda find that to be scary. Personally, i am not a technology buff, but many people are. And i find with the advent of ipods and social networks, that people have forgotten how to communicate face to face. what do you think?

By: Mark @ SEO Tips Blog

Mark @ SEO Tips Blog — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:21:36 +0000

I completely agree with you.Yes, 99 % of your target audience are on social networks. Proper use of social platforms cab result into massive traffic to your website.All you have to do to come up with unique and stunning idea then spread it on all social communities wisely. There you go

Only Try to avoid from spamming these communities as most of us are doing. Happy Social Networking

Mark LopeZ

By: Kemp Edmonds

Kemp Edmonds — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:49:18 +0000

I am curious about what the PMN network is because 99% seems unreasonably high.

“200 individuals from the Participatory Marketing Network were surveyed” -From original study post on PMN

Was the survey doen through the internet? If so it would be no surprise to see that 99% of those who participate in internet surveys would be on social media networks.

All I am really trying to say is: Is this number truly representative of the average prospective student? Doubtful.

Please enlighten me.

By: lexaz01

lexaz01 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:05:15 +0000

I recently came accross your site and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this site very often.

By: Jae Burnham

Jae Burnham — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:54:26 +0000

Great article. Very useful for my business. I hope you don’t mind but I quoted you on my blog…No worries I gave you credit and link.

Jae

By: 99% Of Your Future Is Using Social Media Networks Like Facebook, Twitter And YouTube | Successful Website Marketing

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:52:12 +0000

[...] was recently reading a blog post by Kyle James where he was giving the statistics of kids between the ages of 18 and 24 are on some sort of social [...]

By: patmcgraw

patmcgraw — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:38:50 +0000

Does the study get into usage beyond “belonging” – how much time, activity? What’s their level of involvement and where do they spend the most time and energy?

I hate “99 percent have a profile on a social networking site” – I have profiles on sites I haven’t been to in more than a year. I have profiles on sites that I visit every few months but never really engage in. And I have profiles on sites that I live on.

From a business perspective, I would like to know about usage, loyalty etc.

By: Wayne State Web Communications Blog » Blog Archive » Do 1,000 Twitter followers matter? No.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:07:53 +0000

[...] we see an almost full saturation of social media by our prospective students it is impossible to ignore that these networks are a necessity to [...]

By: links for 2009-06-02 « innovations in higher education

links for 2009-06-02 « innovations in higher education — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:10:27 +0000

[...] Social networking research: 99% of your audience are on them. Still need convincing? (tags: socialmedia research web socialnetworks media statistics newmedia teens millennials socialnetworking sharing content) [...]

By: Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:52:59 +0000

Excellent points Kyle. There’s obviously no question that Gen Y is online, the question is where are they online? We know that Twitter and LinkedIn skew older but that also means that we can find alumni, faculty, staff and parents there. Even if Twitter isn’t geared to the core audience of student prospects, it is geared to other key constituents.

Facebook on the other hand, began in academia and still has a large percentage of younger users. Quantcast says that 46% of Facebook users are 18-34 (current students, prospective grad students and young alumni). 27% are 12-17 (prospective undergrads). With Facebook getting 87 million visits a month, that’s a sizable target audience.

These numbers are not insignificant and suggest that Facebook is a good place to reach current and prospective students.

But we also have to rethink marketing. We can’t look at social media numbers in the same way we might look at subscribers to a magazine or viewers of certain T.V. shows. Social media isn’t just about advertising and pushing the message out, but about communicating. Thus these tools give us more than a way to promote schools, they give us a way to communicate with audiences, be they prospective students, parents or existing members of a university community.

Twitter, Facebook, etc. let us begin dialogs with all of our audiences in the places they already inhabit. If students are on Facebook, then use that to promote events and get students involved in campus projects. If staff and the media are on Twitter use that to communicate news and announcements geared to them.

There are thousands of social media tools available, we just need to focus on the ones that serve both our goals and those of our users.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:31:34 +0000

Ron & Melissa,
Great points. I think the angle I would drive home is NOT that you need to contact or directly market to these individuals through these networks (although there are lots of success stories of doing this), but that you MUST be present simply to say that you get it. Social Media for businesses is as much about LISTENING (a really hard thing for most companies to do I know) than marketing. People will tell you what works and what doesn’t. Also I STRONGLY believe that you have to be producing content regularly to show that you are a great institution and why can’t your Facebook (substitute any network) presence be a landing page all about how awesome you are that is a direct portal into the areas of your website that you want to drive this traffic. If you have great student blogs, wonderful interactive map, solid camps videos, etc well why can’t you syndicate those to these social networks or simply tell your audience that you are here and if you want to know more please click through to our student blogs and read to your hearts content. Do people really hope that students will magically stumble upon content on their site without putting bait into these various portals for users to “find” them?

By: Melissa Cheater

Melissa Cheater — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:50:52 +0000

What are our thoughts on this vs the e-expectations stat that 22% of their respondents (high school senior pse applicants) are NOT on social media? This statistic has been bugging me all day – I hate being wrong, but tell me I read it wrong?

The same study (2009 e-expectations) said that 75% of respondents thought schools should have a Facebook Page, but that respondents were torn over whether schools should use social networks to directly contact applicants (51% yes, 46% no)