Some really great research is beginning to disseminate through the blogosphere emanating from the Personal Democracy Forum just held in New York. In particular, is the user base and growth of the two largest social networks, MySpace and Facebook.
Northwestern researcher Eszter Harggitai found that MySpace’s users slightly declined or stayed about the same over a 0ne year period dating back to 2008. In fact, Facebook’s traffic increased 97 percent and MySpace’s traffic declined 5 percent from a year ago, writes Riva Richmond, blogging for the New York Times.
Both Richmond and Harggitai refer to social media researcher Danah Boyd, who has uncovered important demographic trends with Facebook and MySpace users.
Research by Harggitai, Boyd and others boils down to this:
Whites are using Facebook more and leaving MySpace
Asians are using Facebook at very high levels and MySpace very little
Hispanics are more likely to be active on MySpace than Facebook
African Americans seem to be more evenly split between using Facebook and MySpace but are using Facebook slightly more
Facebook users come from more economically advantaged families than MySpace users
Not commenting on the social stratification of the research findings, it is interesting for those who are running local political campaigns to take this data into consideration when putting together an online communications strategy. Supposing there is finite time in a campaign, plus limited staff resources, it is safe to assume that a campaign cannot effectively be all over each social network and use each well (i.e. John Edwards in 2008).
Therefore, especially for urban and suburban districts, it seems practical to use this data in order to assist a campaign in choosing what kind of social networking strategy they will employ. Campaigns have to ask themselves, does it make sense to use Facebook in a more predominantly African American or Hispanic voting area? This research would indicate that would be a bad idea. But, the realities on the ground are always a little different and must be measured for each case.
The lesson here is listening to statistics and going with the percentages. Other campaigns have tried and failed, others have won. Good campaigns listen to those lessons and put those findings to work to their advantage.
It was a great pleasure to speak on a panel last night sponsored by the Medill Alumni Club and Google’s Chicago office (held at Google). The topic was Politics 2.0: Exploring the Impact of Digital Media on the Presidential Election.
The presenters, Peter Greenberger from Google and Lee Brenner of MySpace Impact, gave some great insight into how their companies’ products are enagaging the electorate and changing political races.
Given the expertise and national stature of these presenters, I decided to focus on the local angle. I gave an overview and somewhat of an analysis of my experience as a digital strategist for Daniel Biss‘ Illinois State Assembly campaign.
One of the most interesting microtrends occurring in the social media marketing world is the self-segmentation of audiences. Yes, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn get most of the attention (as they should, since their numbers are so big). However, Nick de Klerk at the Pixel 8 Studios blog reports that there are over 700 online social networking sites.
This growing fragmentation is reminiscent of what has happened to TV with the advent of cable and satellite. Smaller audiences become aggregated around content that correspond directly to audiences’ behavioral patterns. For public affairs professionals seeking to engage folks who care about issues, this is a trend that we must stay on top of.
Reaching our target markets, engaging in conversation on our issues and finding advocates will become highly targetable in this fragmented social media marketplace.
Like anything else though, genuine engagement in these social networking sites is what is needed. Social media is great at building trust and conversation. However, it is also easier to weed out those who are just using the online space for self-serving purposes. We always have to be genuine when working with online communities. Bottom line, it takes time and patience – just like any relationship.
