Social Media is not a new thing...

Social Media is not a new thing. The Internet first started around sharing information.

Sources: "Universal McCanns global research into the impact of social media."

In the past "Waves of the Internet" there has been occasional mis-understanding about what the results represent, due to the fact that smaller less economically developed countries lead the way. The reason lies in the focus of the study, which is to understand usage of social media among internet users.

Emerging Internet markets tend to have a demographical profile that fits the early adopter as opposed to the mature internet markets such as Japan and the US. This can be a factor in lower levels of adoption in penetration terms. It must also be considered that emerging markets have lower levels of internet penetration, so the impact of social media among the country as a whole will be more measured.

• As they are the key leaders of social media and drivers of adoption, they are the most important consumer to understand.


• They are the most important consumer to understand the adoption of social media who are key to growing the internet.


• They make up the vast majority of social media adopters.


• If you’re not using the internet regularly, you’re not blogging.


• Over time, all users increase the regularity of usage.


• Eventually everybody will be an active user, as they have been with television.
  

Social Media Points Worth Noting:

Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development. If you are online you are using social media.

Majority of users blog for personal reasons. Personal communication. Social Media connects people.

• Asian markets are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region.
  
• All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves
  - Video Clips are the quickest growing platform
  
• 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
  – 55% of users have uploaded photos
  – 22% of users have uploaded videos
  
• The widget economy is real
  – 23% of social network users have installed an application
  – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates
  
• Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media
  – 73% have read a blog
  
• The blogsphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide
  – The number one thing to blog about is personal life and family
  
• China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42MM bloggers, more than the US and Western Europe combined
  
• Social media impacts your brands reputation
  – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog
  – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

Social Media is not a new thing. The Internet first started around sharing information. Chat rooms, forum boards etc...

Social media is an important shift, as it summarises the importance of interaction, the consumer and the community. The term emphasises the idea that as a collective it can have as much impact as any traditional media platform. In truth, to claim social media as “new” is slightly misleading. From the beginning, the internet was founded on message boards, chat rooms and peer to peer communication. What has changed is the mass involvement that modern social platforms inspire.

Contributing to the internet has never been as accessible and less technical. Innovations in web development, computing technology and the proliferation of broadband have come together in drive monumental consumer take up. This is why the phenomenon of social media is important now – it has the potential to impact on all our media consumption therefore shifting the emphasis from professional content producers to the consumer.