June 24th, 2008
Everyone is a Creators Now! Really?
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Quick Summary: Read my analysis on the real nature of engagement with social media amongst US Internet users.
In a recent post, I had used the Forrester Research Social Technographics Profile Tool to compare the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China.
Now, I have come across new data from eMarketer on the US internet users’ social media usage that doesn’t quite fit in with the Forrester Research data.
As per Forrester Research data —
- 19% of US internet users are Creators, who publish blogs, maintain websites, or upload self-created photos, podcasts or videos on social sites.
- 25% of US internet users are Critics, who post ratings and reviews of products and services on user review sites, comment on someone else’s blogs or contribute to online forums or wikis.
- 12% of US internet users are Collectors, who create metadata that’s shared with the entire community, by aggregating RSS feeds in a feed reader, by saving or tagging URLs on a social bookmarking service, or by voting for websites on a social voting site.
- 25% of US internet users are Joiners, who visit and maintain profiles on social networking sites.
- 48% of US internet users are Spectators, who read blogs, online forums and customer ratings/ reviews, listen to podcasts and watch peer-generated video.
- 44% of US internet users are Inactives, who do not participate at all in social media activities.
However, according to a 2007 Deloitte & Touche study of US internet users (reported by eMarketer) –
- 46% maintain and share photographs, 34% create personal content, 22% maintain a personal website, and 18% maintain a blog (Creators).
- 28% participate in discussion board or forums (Critics).
- 51% read personal content created by others, 38% read message boards, 36% watch video streaming sites, and 36% read blogs (Spectators).
- 37% socialize (presumably Joiners).
According to other reports on online behavior of US Internet users by eMarketer –
- Almost 43% of US internet users are User Generated Content Creators. However, eMarketer’s definition of UGC Creators includes users who create and share video/ audio/ photo/ personal blogs/ personal websites (Creators), online bulletin board postings/ customer reviews (Critics) and personal profiles in social networks or virtual worlds (Joiners).
- More than 54% of US internet users read blogs (Spectators).
So, while all three reports agree that about 50% of all US Internet users are Spectators, and about 25% are Critics, there is significant disagreement on Joiners and Creators.
The percentage of Joiners amongst US internet users varies dramatically from 25% as per Forrester to more than 35% as per Deloitte & Touche and eMarketer.
The percentage of Creators amongst US internet users varies dramatically from less than 20% as per Forrester to more than 40% to 50% as per Deloitte & Touche and eMarketer.
While the percentage of Spectators is perhaps the most important number from an advertising revenue perspective, the percentage of Joiners and Creators are undoubtedly the most important metrics to understand the creativity-driven, community-based power of social media.
It is based on the claims that “all of us are creators now” and “all of us want to belong to communities” that commentators like Patricia Martin are predicting that “we are about to see a cultural movement that is similar in scope and scale to the Renaissance”.
It’s a little sad, then, that we are still unable to get a fix on how many Internet users really are Creators and Joiners, even for a mature market like the US.
