SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS by AGE and COUNTRY

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: ABOUT THIS REPORT

This report outlines trends observed within social media by age and geography. The research was completed between June and July 2011.

Countries covered: Australia Brazil Canada China Denmark France Germany India Italy Ireland Japan Mexico Spain Sweden UK US

MEDIA TRENDS: AGE

Which social media sites do Under 18s use?

Kaixin001

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: AGE

Engaging with Target Audiences Under 18s

HIDDEN - Young people can become hidden in the statistics. For example, although Facebook is restricted to over 13s, many younger children use the site by claiming that they are older SOCIAL GAMING - Younger peoples use of social media is often more focused on gaming BLOGGING Blogging is not just an adult pursuit. A recent US study from PEW Research found that 35% of girls and 20% of boys aged 12-17 blogged

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: AGE

Which social media sites do 18-30 year olds use?

Tencent Weibo

MEDIA TRENDS: AGE

Engaging with Target Audiences 18-30 year olds

WIDESPREAD - People aged between 18 and 30 years old are present on a huge range of social media sites. GLOBAL - The challenge for any company is to locate relevant communities of interest. Many of these communities of interest will cross national borders.

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

How does the % of the population online vary by country?

Figures are from Internet World Stats, March 31st 2011 (http://www.internetworldstats.com/)

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

Which countries use social networking the most?

Figures are from Global Web Index, March 31st 2011 (http://www.internetworldstats.com/)

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

Which were the top sites across the 16 countries?

These are the amalgamated figures for the top ten sites for each country by number of unique users

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

How does the use of social media differ by culture?

Blogging and online video is popular Many social networks/forums are anonymous Social gaming is key

Q&A sites are popular Information sharing is prominent, with accuracy and expertise viewed as important

Strong blog culture

Short updates and chat, via microblogs and social networks such as Facebook are most popular. Blogging is less prominent

These are the amalgamated figures for the top ten sites for each country by number of unique users

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Australia?

Top 10 Social Media Sites in Australia
60% of all internet users in Australia use Facebook (bandt.com). In Australia 28% of the sites users are under the age of 17; 18% are aged 18-34 (socialmedianews.com.au)

Video and photo-sharing sites are prominent amongst the top social media sites for Australia, with YouTube, Flickr and Vimeo appearing amongst the top sites. According to Comscore, 79% of the internet population watches video online

Another more surprising site featured is DeviantArt, which showcases user generated art

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Australia based on the total number of unique users as found using alexa.com and Goole Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Brazil?

Top 10 Social Media Sites in Brazil
Facebook is used by 29% of the online population in Brazil, although this accounts for only 11% of the total population in the country, as internet penetration is fairly low (socialbakers.com) Orkut is the most popular social networking site in Brazil, although the number of people using Facebook is increasing rapidly

According to recent figures from ComScore, 24% of Brazils internet population over the age of 15 use Twitter. The percentage of the population using Twitter is the third highest globally

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Brazil based on the total number of unique users using alexa.com and Google Adplanner. Figures for Facebook and Orkut have been sourced from socialbakers.com and Comscore respectively

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Canada?

Top Social Media Sites in the Canada
In October 2010, 50% of people in Canada used Facebook. 29% of Canadian Facebook users were aged 1824 years (socialbakers.com). In February 2011, 67% of Canadas total population viewed more than 5.1 billion videos online, with the average viewer watching 232 videos (comscore.com).

LinkedIn was one of Canadas fastest growing social media platforms in 2010, with a 35% increase in unique visitors (comscore.com). Older Canadians are becoming increasingly engaged with social media, with a 35% increase in unique visitors aged 55+ in 2010 (comscore.com).

18% of people in Canada used Twitter in April 2011 (comscore.com), with English-speaking users averaging 33.4 hours online a week and Francophones 23.8 hours (bbm.ca).

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in June 2011 as found using alexa.com and Google Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in China?

Top 10 Social Media sites in China
Qzone is a hugely popular nickname based social networking site. According to Bshare, members of this social network are more likely to share content than users of any other site (resonancechina.com) Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and most recently, Google+, have been blocked in China. Chinese equivalents of these sites are favoured

PengYou, (meaning Friends in English), is a real-name social networking site. It competes with RenRen, another real-name network very similar to Facebook. Brands campaigns and Facebook pages are not free to companies wishing to use RenRen for PR and marketing

51.com is one of the oldest Chinese social networking sites, which is popular outside of the major cities

Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo are microblogging sites. Whilst Tencent Weibo had more users on paper, Sina Weibo is seen to more popular, with higher account usage rates. Sina accounts for 87% of page views in the microblogging market (technode.com)

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in China based on the total number of unique users found using alexa.com and Google AdPlanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Denmark?

Top 10 Social Media Sites in Denmark
YouTube is the fourth most visited website in Denmark, however, no statistics could be found on the number of unique users for the site

Facebook is by far the most popular social media site in Denmark; almost 50% of the population use the site (socialbakers.com). 41% of users are between the ages of 18 and 34

Amino.dk is forum for entrepreneurs and the selfemployed. Arto.dk is an online community where people can chat with friends, play games, and share photos and videos

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Denmark based on the total number of unique users found using alexa.com and Google AdPlanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in France?

Top 10 Media Sites in France
Facebook is the top social network in terms of the number of unique users. At the beginning of June 2011 the site had 22.5 million users in France (insidefacebook.com) Skyrock is the third most visited site; France accounts for more than half of Skyrock users globally (publicintelligence.net). Two of the top four sites are video sharing sites.

In March 2011 there were 2.4 million Twitter users in France (semiocast.com). There is a low level Twitter penetration in the internet population compared to other European countries such as the UK and the Netherlands (comscore.com)

French internet users spend an average of 4.1 hours per month on social networks (comscore.com)

49% of French internet users have an account with Copains dAvant, a site where former school and university students can connect, but it has low daily traffic, indicating that many of the accounts are inactive

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in France based on the total number of unique users found using alexa.com and google adplanner.com

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Germany?

Top Social Media Sites in Germany
Germany has the tenth highest number of Facebook users in the world (socialbakers.com). 31% of the online population use the site. 17% of user are under 18 and 54% are aged 1834 Gutefrage.net, an online advice site, where users can freely exchange tips and information, is very popular

Xing is the most popular professional network in Germany, in contrast to most of the other 16 countries, where Linkedin is preferred

The VZ networks (StudiVz, MeinVZ and SchulerVZ) dominated social networking in Germany until early 2010, when Facebooks popularity began to increase

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in June 2011 as found using alexa.com and Google Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in India?

Top Social Media Sites in India
Facebook is the top social network and is growing rapidly. The sites membership increased by 166% between May 2010 and June 2011 (insidefacebook.com). In May 2011, 40% of Orkuts 100 million active users were based in India (theatlantic.com). Its popularity is waning, however, as Facebook becomes more prevalent

LinkedIn launched in India in 2009, and by June 2011 had grown its subscriber base to 10 million (businessstandard.com). The site is particularly popular with younger professionals (average user age 31)

Bharatstudent.com, Indias largest student and youth community platform has recently joined forces with Facebook. Facebook accounts will be integrated into bharatstudent.com in an effort to boost the number of users

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in June 2011 as found using alexa.com and Goggle AdPlanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Ireland?

Top 10 Social Media sites in Ireland

43% of the Irish population and 66% of the online population use Facebook (socialbakers.com). 55% of the sites users site are aged between 18 and 34

Internet forum boards.ie is hugely popular, offering a place for people to discuss a multitude of topics from an Irish perspective

Between February and May 2011, the number of Irish over 15s with a Twitter account increased from 7 to 11% (www.ipsosmrbi.com)

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Ireland based on the total number of unique users found using alexa.com and Google AdPlanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Italy?

Top 10 Social Networks in Italy
Facebook is the most popular social media site in Italy, with 66% of the online population using the site (socialbakers.com). 50% of users are between 18 and 34 years old.

Badoo is a free to use social network based around meeting new people, dating and flirting. It has 6 million members in Italy (badoo.com), although the recent unique users figures were found to be lower

Twitter is less popular in Italy than some other major European countries. Sysomos.com found that Twitter users in Italy contributed less than 0.5% of Tweets globally

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Italy based on the total number of unique users as found using alexa.com and Google Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Japan?

Top 10 Social Media Sites in Japan
Japanese was the second language to be added to Twitter. Around a fifth of of the internet population use the microblogging service (comscore.com)

Video sharing sites YouTube and Nico Nico Douga are the top two social media sites in Japan. A researcher from Nihon Gigei Inc. said there are probably no other Japanese media that grab at the hearts of young people as firmly as Nico Nico Douga does (japantimes.co.jp).

2-Channel (2ch) is a huge Japanese forum which does not require registration and allows people to post anonymously.

Mixi is the most popular social networking site in Japan. Many people access the site via a mobile phone, as 84% of page impressions are delivered to mobile users (Morgan Stanley Research). Only those with a valid Japanese phone number may register.

The chart above shows the top ten social networks in Japan based on the total number of unique users using www.alexa.com ,www.google.com/adplanner and comscore.com

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Mexico?

Top 10 Social Media Sites in Mexico
Mexico was the third fastest growing country on Facebook in 2010, with the number of users increasing by 192% (socialbakers.com).

Twitter multiplied its reach in Mexico by nine times in the year leading up to August 2010 (comscore.com). In the same period, however, usage of Hi5 declined.

An October 2010 survey of several Latin American markets found that people in Mexico consume the most online video content, with each user viewing an average of 9.7 hours per month (comscore.com).

The chart above shows the top ten social networks in Mexico based on the total number of unique users as found using alexa.com and Goolge Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Spain?

Top Social Media Platforms in Spain

According to Comscore, 82% of internet users in Spain watch online video, with both YouTube and Dailymotion appearing in the top ten sites Almost 50% of the online population in Spain use Facebook (socialbakers.com). 54% of users are aged 18-34

Tuenti, an invite-only social networking site, the top site in Spain until last year, when it was overtaken by Facebook. The sites chat function is popular, but it is not as easy to share links and information as on Facebook

The chart above shows the top social media platforms in Spain based on the total number of unique users using www.alexa.com and www.google.com/adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in Sweden?

Top 10 Social Media sites in Sweden
48% of the population of Sweden use Facebook. 44% of the users are aged 18-34 (socialbakers.com) Some home-grown Swedish social media sites, such as lunarstorm, have shut down due to the rise of global sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin

75% of Swedish young people use YouTube at least once a week (Kairos Furture, 2011)

Swedish site dayviews, previously known as bilddagboken, allows user to document their day in photos. It has around 420,000 unique users

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in Sweden based on the total number of unique users found using alexa.com and Google AdPlanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in UK?

Top Social Media Sites in the United Kingdom

YouTube accounts for around 20% of visits to social networking sites in the UK (hitwise.com). The UK ranks third in Europe for the number of online videos watched per viewer (Comscore, April 2011)

The UK has the fourth highest number of Facebook users in the world. 58% of the online population uses the site (socialbakers.com). 50% of users are aged between 18 and 34.

Almost 15% of the online population (aged 15+) are on linkedin.com (Comscore, March 2011). The majority of users of the site are aged 25+ and they are more likely to be in the 30k+ income bracket (linkhumans.com)

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in June 2011 as found using alexa.com and Goggle Adplanner

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: GEOGRAPHY

What are the key social media platforms in US?

Top Social Media Sites in United States
According to recent figures from Pew Research Center, 13% of Americans online use Twitter. 18% of 18-29 year olds online use the microblogging service, up from 9% in November 2010

Facebook is the top social network in terms of the number of unique users. 49% of the population, and 64% of the online population uses the site (socialbakers.com). 49% of Facebook users are aged between 18 and 34

Classmates.com (or Memory Lane, as it has been rebranded) is a site where people can find lost friends

The chart above shows the top ten social media sites in June 2011 as found using alexa.com and Google Adplanner