Some data points on social media

As debates continue to rage about how much social media matters, I keep being asked whether we have any data on the topic.

We actually have quite a bit which we use for our own monitoring and planning purposes, and from time to time, we have published snippets of it. The problem is that whenever we have done this, we have tended to get into a big debate about how we have interpreted things, especially with people who are trying to drive an agenda or defend a position they have gone out on a limb with.

Ironically, anyone that knows Freeform will be aware that use of social media is just a small part of what we do and our outreach is based mostly on more traditional channels to our audiences. We blend social media into the mix, but have no real axe to grind one way or another.

Anyway, as people keep asking me for data I have presented some below. It is based on an online research study conducted in September 2007 and illustrates the way in which use of social media varies within the IT professional community. Please don't take the absolute percentages literally as this was a self-selecting sample which would have been biased towards those with an interests in social media - the insight comes more from relative comparison - i.e. the differences between various groups and contrasts between personal and business use. You should also bear in mind that research over 6 months old (as this is) will not necessarily reflect the position today in such a fast moving area like social media. We'll repeat this study at some point and do some proper trending, but in the meantime, here are the raw charts - deliberately without commentary:

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN CONTEXT: OVERALL VIEW



ACTIVITY BY PERSONAL VS BUSINESS USE
(These next two charts show exactly the same data, just sorted differently)





ZOOMING IN ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA ELEMENTS
(Again, same data, just zooming in on on the social stuff for clarity)





SOME INTERESTING DIFFERENCES BY AGE GROUP





As I said - deliberately no interpretation or commentary - but welcome views from others, either on the email back channel, via Twitter (id=dale_vile), or simply via blog comments below.