Forrester Research has just published its third annual study about consumers’ participation in social media. The data from the US is available and indicate that the digital divide is closing. Consumers who are participating the most in social technologies are labelled Creators, Critics and Collectors and all three groups have either grown moderately or are at the same level as last year. Instead the inexperienced groups called Joiners and Spectators grew rapidly. As many as 73% of online Americans are now in the group Spectators, which means that they read blogs, listen to podcast or watch videos from other users.
The inactive group decreased from 25% to 18% of the online US population.In the age group under 35 only 10% are Inactive.
According to the research data for Europe, “The Netherlands and Sweden have the most participation, Italy has the most Creators, and social networks are most popular in the UK.” But Sweden and Europe is still lagging the US. A comparison between Sweden and the US looks like this:
Participation in social technologies are growing fast and as author Josh Bernoff at Forrester writes: “Marketers, if you’re not doing social technology applications now, you’re officially behind.”
You can also check the data for individual contries on this widget.
Tags: socialmedia, research, sweden, sociala medier. Ping.