According to the findings of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study released last week, almost 60% of Americans interact with companies on a social media website, and one in four interact more than once per week.
Key findings:
- 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while
- 85% believe a company should not only be present, but should also interact with its consumers on social sites.
- 56% of consumers feel both a stronger connection with, and better served by, companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.
What types of interactions to people want?
- 41% want companies to solicit their feedback
- 33% of men and 17% of women interact frequently (one or more times per week) with companies socially.
33% of younger people (ages 18-34) as well as a third of the wealthiest hoseholds, believe companies should actively market to them via social networks. Both Facebook and MySpace offer advertisers the opportunity to target marketing to users based on their social profile.
Retailers most frequently use the following social media sites:
- Facebook: 32%
- MySpace: 27%
- Youtube: 26%
- Flickr: 5%
Use of Social Media sites by all Internet users continues to rise dramatically.
Twitter use has grown four fold over the past year and now boasts over 2 Million users. Facebook has over 29 Million users and growing.
