We
recently conducted a study measuring user activity across social media channels in regards to the content created by brands pages. The study attracted over 500 participants, allowing us to draw conclusions that can assist in structuring a brands social media marketing strategy. The results from the questionnaire can help provide vital information in regards to their social media popularity, levels of engagement, means of communication and trends towards social media use on mobile devices complemented with specific age and gender demographics. We used this information to give us a better idea of which market segments are most engaging across social media channels.
The most used social media platform amongst male participants was Facebook (267), followed by Twitter (183), YouTube (174) and LinkedIn (135). With the least popular being photo orientated social media sites Pinterest (35) and Flicker (13).
We found most males (29.4%) spent up to 2 hours on social media daily with 25% spending up to 3 hours. There wasn’t much differentiation between genders in terms of mobile usage, but consequently more important to consider the impact of age groups instead. However, there were subsequent gender differences with the way males interacted and engaged with brands through social media compared to women. Overall, males were less likely to engage with brands through social media, with 26% choosing the option, none, I don’t like to engage with brands on social media.
Although the response for males to either choose to comment/reply or share/retweet with brands social media pages was rather low at 17% and 8% respectively, 49% of males said they like/favourite a brands comment or post on their social media page. With this majority answer, it shows support for the majority of male participants (36%) who said they were more likely to interact with a brand on social media if they posted funny updates, which consequently encourages more likes than comments from users.
Females shared the same popularity when it came to the use of Facebook (203) and Twitter (146), both the most used social media channel amongst females and males, however when it came to LinkedIn (59) and YouTube (81), this dropped considerably compared to participation amongst males. This was made up with the participation of females on Pinterest (73) double what it was for males (35), demonstrating a preference amongst females due to its photo/picture orientated user generated content, supported by the popularity of similar social media site Instagram which saw 91 female participants saying they use the social media site compared to only 50 males, considering there was a larger male sample from the overall amount of respondents, it demonstrates the gender difference between photo sharing social media platforms.
As with the males, the most used social media sites selected by females, presented a positive correlation amongst females that selected their favourite/most used social media channel, with Facebook at 29%, followed by Twitter with 21% and photo sharing social media sites Pinterest and Instagram with 11% and 18%, a considerable amount more compared to male respondents who 0.7% say Pinterest is their favourite social media platform and only 3% of which for Instagram.
Compared to males, females were overall more likely to engage with brands through social media, with 54% saying they like/favourite a brands post and 12% admitting to retweeting/sharing a brands post or update. This reflects as to why females are more likely to share or like a promotional offer compared to males. Which can be compared to sites Groupon’s and Living Socials target market, who solely generate revenue through promotional brands, where
77% of their customers are female, suggesting a gender difference between males and females, supporting the idea that females are more likely to be enticed to a brands marketing communications through a promotional incentive, which encourages them to engage and interact with a brand, in this case through social media updates.
However for a broader more distinguished analysis of basic demographics from users on social media channels, an evaluation of age differences will better provide generalisations to different generations and a further distinguished market segmentation. The most popular age range for use on social media was the 21-30 year old bracket, with 257 respondents saying they use Facebook and 205 using Twitter. However only 35% and 23% respectively said that these were their favourite/most used social media channels, suggesting that this age bracket are actively engaging across a variety of social media channels.
Facebook was predominantly the majority favourite choice across all age ranges which is supported by Facebook’s overall global dominance with 1.11 billion active monthly users. Twitter is the second most popular social media site amongst all ages up until the 41-50 & 51+ age brackets, where popularity is shared amongst Pinterest and LinkedIn, suggesting a more conscious effort to use social media for professional purposes.
In regards to how long age groups are spending on social media, the younger the user the longer they spent on social media, with the older the user, the less time they spent on social media. This may be due to social differences between younger and older users, with older users spending most of their time working and taking part in other activities that were around before social media. Whereas for the younger users, it has become more of a way of life in the digital age, something that they have grown up with. A
study by Mahboub Hashem on the time spent on social media by the younger generation, concluded that, “Many families give their kids laptops and cell phones because they prefer to keep them close at home instead of playing outside with strangers,” suggesting a social trend between technology and younger age groups.
Differences were also evident in the way age groups engaged with brands on social media sites. 50% of 51+year olds said they don’t like to engage with brands on social media, with the most popular age group to use social media to seek customer service being the under 16’s, 16-21 year olds and the 22-30 year olds, suggesting that the younger generation are using social media to interact with brands for a variety of reasons, which could consequently see the decline of customer call centres in the future and a trend towards businesses associating customer service enquiries through their social media divisions. This trend was recognised in 2011 by innovative computer technology corporation Dell, who had trained over 25,000 employees to monitor social mentions of the company daily in 11 different languages, recognising this shift amongst users, however this may be relevant to their target market and subsequent stakeholders, it emphasises the deviation between how different age groups view the accessibility of communication with brands.
#TheFutureOfMarketing
By Chris Kyriacou
@MrChrisKyriacou
Connect with me on LinkedIn
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