Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Poll: Social Media Convergence--Are You Using More or Fewer Social Networks?

Today I ran across a couple of interesting studies--Universal McCann's "Power to the People: Social Media Tracker" and ShesConnected's "The Power of Social Networking For Women Research Study."

These two documents are crammed with terrific information, but one thing that caught my eye was some data that indicates a Social Media convergence may be underway. As noted by eMarketer:
Universal McCann also sees a “decline or stasis” in the use of separate sites for activities such as blogging and photo-sharing. Instead, users are looking to social networks that consolidate multiple social media in a single place.

Meanwhile, the ShesConnected report notes:
As the number of Social Network sites proliferate and people become overwhelmed with the number of choices and time required for upkeep, Social Networks with the greatest number of members will thrive. This consolidation will mean smaller networks will be unable to remain viable unless they offer a unique value proposition.

The term "consolidate" appears in both reports. In some ways, the consolidation noted in these reports parallels my own experience; at one point, I tried to keep up with multiple microblogging platforms, but I've long since abandoned Identica and Plurk to focus on (of course) Twitter.

But in other ways, I'm still expanding my Social Networks based on interest, uniqueness, and need. For example, I recently became a paying member of Flickr because uploading low-res images to Facebook sometimes does not satisfy my needs; sharing pictures in Facebook is easy, but doing so in Flickr is the better option when quality matters.

So, I'm curious about the experience of those that read this blog. Are you using more, fewer, or the same number of Social Networks as three months ago? Please answer below:

No comments: