Survey participants share their online habits
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A new study released by ExactTarget and CoTweet shares recent results and insight into consumers’ expectations for interacting with brands online. The study specifically focuses on consumers’ who use Twitter and their online habits (see below).
Upon reading the results I decided to conduct an informal poll of my own. I spend so much time reading research from other companies that I wanted to know how those in my network compare. Similar to the ExactTarget survey I only asked those who are active on Twitter and Facebook. The five-question survey received more than 320 individual responses with a breakdown of 65 percent female and 35 percent male.
RESULTS
- Compared to the ExactTarget survey, 72 percent of active Twitter users said they publish blogs at least monthly. My results? 76 percent publish on at least a weekly basis with 26 percent who blog one to two times weekly.
- Compared to the ExactTarget survey, 70 percent of respondents said they comment on blogs. My results? 87 percent said they comment on blogs, vlogs and/or social networks regularly with 38 percent who comment at least one to five times daily.
- Compared to the ExactTarget survey, 20 percent of consumers indicate they have followed a brand in order to interact with the company. My results? 58 percent they interact with brands on an “as needed” basis, while 42 percent interact with brands on a daily basis. (44 percent of male respondents said they interact with brands on a daily basis.)
Since I had people’s attention, I also wanted to ask about location-based networks. The results?
How often do you use a location-based social network (i.e. Foursquare, Gowalla, etc…)? 45 percent of respondents said “never” while 37 percent said they check in between one and three times daily. (More women than men said they “never” check in.)
Here are the complete survey results in their full glory for you to enjoy.
What do you think about the results? What would you have asked? What do you want to know?
Thank you to everyone who took the time to share responses.
NOTE: These are merely my musings and in no way are scientific results. The respondents are most likely already active online as I only surveyed via Twitter and Facebook. If you’re looking for real results, check out HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab.
11 Comments on this post
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Philip said:
The results are a bit skewed because those who responded are active in the community, I don’t think this is your average user.
August 8th, 2010 at 8:09 pm -
PRsarahevans said:
Philip – You’re absolutely right. These are not your average users and the results are skewed. Thanks to your comment I added a “note” at the bottom of the post making sure to point that out. Thank you!
August 8th, 2010 at 8:24 pm -
Kelly Stone said:
Interesting results and excellent comments. Keep up the good work.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:46 pm -
Cheap SSL said:
The after-effects are a bit skewed because those who responded are alive in the community, I do not anticipate this is your boilerplate user.
August 9th, 2010 at 2:16 am -
Morgan Stewart said:
Love that you made the effort to confirm our results. I think it is really cool that the number of people who blog is about the same. Given the margin of error for our two sample sizes, this is about the same.
As for the difference in the last one “people following a brand in order to interact with them.” This likely has everything to do with how the question was worded and presented to respondents. In the ExactTarget survey, we asked only those consumers that said they Followed at least one brand on Twitter what motivated them to follow that brand. There were 13 distinct choices, though respondents could select as many as apply. The top cited reason was “to get updates on future products” (38%). 20% said they followed a company on Twitter “to interact (e.g., share ideas, provide feedback) with the brand.”
Additionally, we took measures to ensure those in the marketing profession were not among the respondents. Given all of the attention to social media in marketing these days, it should come as no surprise that marketing-types are among the most voracious social media users.
We didn’t dig in depth on location-based social networks, but I think it’s safe to assume we will in the future.
In encourage your readers to take a look at all of the reports included in our Subscribers, Fans, and Followers research series, which provides similar insights into Email and Facebook as well. http://www.exacttarget.com/sff
Kind Regards,
Morgan Stewart
Principal, Research and Education, ExactTarget
Twitter: @mostewAugust 9th, 2010 at 10:26 am -
Immigration Guy said:
Sarah – thanks for the survey. Pretty interesting results and they do show a somewhat tech-savvy audience. Out of all the people I regularly socialize with offline, probably 1 out of 10 have their own blog:)
August 10th, 2010 at 1:07 am -
PRsarahevans said:
Hi Morgan. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I will absolutely check out the entire series.
August 10th, 2010 at 5:49 am -
Bob @ Cat Illnesses said:
I found the survey results very interesting. But I think they don’t really correspond to the “typical” online user. To me it seems like most of the people who took part in this survey are bloggers and blog owners. Great stuff, thanks a lot for this excellent post.
August 10th, 2010 at 9:52 am -
temizlik firmalari izmir said:
Thanks for the great tips. I can’t wait to start putting some of them to use, especially the tips on using reviews to attract links. People are starving for experts to filter out some of the noise on the web, so if you can convince them you know about a particular subject, they will listen and tell others, as well.
August 11th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sarah Evans and Kim Brame, Kim Brame. Kim Brame said: RT @PRsarahevans: 87 percent of people in my network say they comment on blogs, vlogs and/or social networks regularly. http://bit.ly/bnHRBm [...]
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