Nobody Remembers Brands on Social Media—and Other New Stats from Edison Research

For the price of your email address, the guys over at Social Habit will give you the new Edison Research/Arbitron survey on social media. It's well worth it. Below are a few highlights:

People are liking brands more...

(33% of users of social networking sites follow brands. That's up from 25% last year, and 16% the year before. This year, 36% of social network users said "none" when asked which social network most influenced their purchase behavior. That's way down from last year's 68%.)

...but almost nobody remembers one they like.

(When asked "Think about the companies, brands, products, and services you enjoy following on social network sites. What is the first ONE that comes to mind?" only 332 out of 2,020 people polled responded, and the most frequent company mentioned was Nike, with just 9 mentions.)

Over half of Americans use social networks...

(56% of respondents have at least one social media profile on a social network. 54% of respondents have one on Facebook, or about 143 million Americans.)

...but a third 1/3 never post updates.

Social usage is growing fastest among seniors.

(The greatest increase since last year in social media usage is for people 55 and older. Usage by those 65 and up has increased by over 50% since last year.)

Checking in is checking out.

(Only 3% of respondents have ever used a check-in service. That's down from 4% last year.)

Facebookers like the phone.

(More than 1/2 of Facebook users access it on a phone, and 1/3 say they access it most by phone.)

Twitter usage is up by 1/4 over last year...

(10% of respondents say they currently use Twitter, up from 8% last year, and 7% the year before.)

... and Twitter users are 1/3 more likely to be Democrats than for the U.S. population as a whole.

For another overview, read Jay Baer's summary of the research. --WTP

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  --Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's book “Measure What Matters.” He is also editor of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” by Beth Kanter and Katie Paine, which will be published this year by Wiley.
  Follow Bill Paarlberg on Twitter.

The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, will be glad to talk with you about measurement for your organization.

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