In 2009, more than four out of five online Americans are active in either creating, participating in, or reading some form of social content at least once a month.
That’s according to Forrester Research Inc.’s third annual Social Technologies Profile, The Broad Reach of Social Technologies.
Forrester Research’s Groundswell posits that people participate in social media in one of six ways: as Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators, and Inactives. By categorizing behavior, Forrester has been able to accurately track participation regardless of the specific social network tool. Here’s a look at the historical trends.
What’s most interesting about this is the slow or static growth of the Creator, Critic and Collector categories. I happen to agree with Forrester that the percentage of Creators will always be relatively small — some people feel compelled to create content while others are born consumers. Forrester’s data suggests that Critics haven’t grown because Facebook has provided a new outlet for them.
The real news is the explosive growth in Joiners and Spectators, across all demographics. As Forrester said in its blog, “Spectators — those consuming social content — reached all the way to 73% of online Americans, which should end any remaining skepticism about whether this social thing is real. Soon, with the level of social content being put out there, it will be virtually impossible for an online consumer not to be a Spectator. Marketers, if you’re not doing social technology applications now, you’re officially behind. We expect a wave of Web site reorgs and redesigns to include social activity.”
What about your organization? Are you harnessing the power of social media?
By the way, if you’ve never checked out Forrester’s very cool Groundswell tool to build a profile of your target audiences, you should. And let us know how accurate you think the results are!
