Social Media Sharing Study Shows Email and IM Still Rank Highest; But Sample May Be Flawed

A new study by Social Twist, the creators of the Tell a Friend sharing widget, analyzed the sharing trends of 10 million “shares” since September 2008.  The results show that more traditional forms of online communication, including email and instant messaging, are the most common forms of sharing information in the social media universe.  This debunks the theory of Twitter, which ranked quite low, and social media sites are the top.

Check out the numbers below, but keep in mind the sample may skew the numbers. Because TAF is used on an array of sites, we need to take the demo of this sites into consideration. If TAF sites skew over 30, it would make sense that email is the killer app. Forrester did a study that touched on this @ http://tinyurl.com/mncmtb. Millennials tend to share promos and swag offers more than simple “brand messages” and do it on FB and text.

Also, a big thing to keep in mind: sharing incidence and sharing reach are VERY different.  As is sharing authority, all issues that need to be weighed for you social media strategy.

Here’s the top line results:

• The top channels of sharing include, email, instant messenger, social networking sites
• Despite the social media revolution – traditional forms of networking like email and instant messaging continue to be the most popular mediums of sharing content across the Internet. Nearly 60 percent of overall sharing happens over emails.
• Since it opened itself to all age groups in September 2006, Facebook has displaced MySpace as the most popular social networking site especially when it comes to sharing content online.
• It is clear that Twitter is perceived to be a news broadcast platform and not a “sharing” platform. It enjoys only 5% of “shared information” traffic among popular social platforms.
• Bookmarks are rapidly losing their significance in the social media space. Only 2% of shares happen over Bookmarking sites.
• When it comes to email services, Yahoo Mail is still the most preferred, followed by MSN. Gmail is way behind.
• Google’s services like Google Bookmarking, Google Talk, Gmail, and Blogger have failed to replicate the brand’s search engine success online, especially when it comes to ’shared information.’
• LinkedIn, as a networking site, ranks the lowest when it comes to social media sharing.

See the complete report at http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/sharing-trends-2009.

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