Facebook still dominates, with Twitter lagging far behind!

28 March 2012

With less than a week to go to the annual Nokia Digital Media Awards (DMA’s), which take place at the Convention Centre Dublin on Friday 30th March, event organisers Ashville Media released the results of a survey that looks at the habits and attitudes of social media users in Ireland.  

The Awards, now in their 10th year, offer a platform for the creative and ground breaking work taking place across the broad spectrum of digital media in Ireland.  Since their inception in 2003, the use of social media has been a major catalyst in the use of digital media and the survey gained some interesting insights into how we interact with the various social media tools.

As part of the Awards the role of social media is recognised in the whole Digital Media arena and there are a number of categories where the clever use of social media has been the main decision making factor in choosing a winner.

Just short of 1,000 social media users participated in a survey in Ireland – the following are the highlights:

72% of social media users update their platforms from home with 17% updating on the move, and surprisingly only 11% update from work. 

Tracey Carney, Event Organiser of the Nokia DMA’s stated “We found this statistic very interesting and were surprised by the low percentage of people updating from work.  It gives businesses wishing to connect with their market through social media a guide as to the language, content, style, tone used and also the scheduling of communications.  Also interesting from a business point of view is that 59% of social media users quote keeping in touch with friends and family as their main reason for using social media tools.  From the survey it is obvious that most users of social media have not embraced the platforms for business reasons so far.”

Three out of four people connect to their favourite social media platform daily and not surprisingly Facebook was the most popular platform with 77% of respondents declaring that this is the platform they use most.  Twitter came in a very low second with only 7% of the 1,000 people questioned declaring it as their most used social media platform.  Tracey stated “Twitter users are still in the “Early Adapter” mode in Ireland but we see it growing more and more now that established traditional media titles such as RTE and TV3 are using the platform to communicate their messages, as are individual journalists and broadcasters, politicians, home grown celebrities and sports stars. But there is huge scope for businesses to capitalise on this vacuum.” 

Another interesting fact arising from the survey results was the number of people using social media to communicate with friends and family living abroad.  28% of respondents said that social media platforms were the main point of contact for them with Skype coming second at 26% - both far more than the traditional communication tools of phone calls or text.

The use of mobile devises for communicating through social media channels continues to grow with 35% of people questioned stated this was their main form of accessing social media platforms.

As this figure continues to grow, it will create more and more challenges for Advertisers wishing to access consumers through social media sites.  Tracey stated “This is particularly the case with Facebook, at present Facebook advertisers are not reaching 35% of their market through advertising, and as the number of people accessing social media platforms from their phones continues to grow this will have to be addressed if they want to see advertising revenue grow.”

In summary, the findings show that businesses wishing to communicate with consumers through social media, need a clear understanding of how people are using social media at present and need to be aware of any changes that could affect the way they communicate to their market.

Tracey concluded by saying “The road through the Digital Media environment may have lots of twists and turns, but there are pots of gold to be found along the way.  It takes vision, creativity and a watchful eye on trends to make the most out of social media and digital media.   The Nokia Digital Media Awards, taking place this Friday celebrates such organisations, brands and individuals who have demonstrated these traits in abundance and are leading the way in a very dynamic and challenging environment.”

Details of the Nokia Digital Media Awards finalists can be found on www.digitalawards.ie.