Modern Metrix

Demographic, Psychographic and Behavioral Differences of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn Users

This interesting article in AdAge discusses results of the study by Anderson Analytics on demographic, psychographic, mediagraphic and behavioral differences between users of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. Among the findings:

Facebook users are more likely to be married, White, and retired, compared to users of other social networks. They have the second-highest average income ($61k) and an average of 121 connections. They tend to be older, and late adopters of social media. They interests are diverse and fairly representative of users of all social networks.

My Space users are younger, with the lowest average income ($44k). They are more likely to be Black or Hispanic, single and students. They are more likely to be into having a good time and seeking fun, and their interests include entertaining friends, humor and comedy, and video games. They are less likely to excercise than users of other social networks. The average My Space user has 131 connections, according to the study.

LinkedIn users are more likely to be males than females (57% vs. 43%), with highest average income ($89k). Their interests include news, entertainment information, sports and politics. They own more electronic gadgets such as digital cameras, HDTVs, DVRs (excluding video game systems) than users of other social networks. They are also more likely than other online social groups to go to the gym, spas, play gofl and tennis, and be into gambling an soap operas.

Twitter users are more likely to be employed part-time and have average income of $58k. Their interests include politics, personal finance, sports, restaurants, religion, TV, reading, music, movies. On average, they are more likely to buy books, shoes, movies and cosmetics than users of the other networks. The average Twitter user follows 32 other Twitter users, and has 28 followers.

Purchase Influence in Social Networks: A Study from Harvard Business School

Interesting study "Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network" from Harvard Business School (PDF). Excerpt from the abstract:

"Our results show that there are three distinct groups of users with very different behavior.
The low-status group (48% of users) are not well connected, show limited interaction
with other members and are unaffected by social pressure. The middle-status group (40%
users) is moderately connected, show reasonable non-purchase activity on the site and have a strong and positive effect due to friends’ purchases. In other words, this group
exhibits “keeping up with the Joneses” behavior. On average, their revenue increases by 5% due to this social influence. The high-status group (12% users) is well connected and
very active on the site, and shows a significant negative effect due to friends’ purchases.
In other words, this group differentiates itself from others by lowering their purchase and
strongly pursuing non-purchase related activities. This social influence leads to almost 14% drop in the revenue of this group. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications
of our results."

 

TV Trends search engine!

Now, this is amazing: TV Trends let you search mentions of any word or phrase on TV. You get a plot of dates when that word was mentioned, genre of the TV program, station, AND transcript of what was said.

What is the Future of Personalized Ads Online?

This interesting study by Q Interactive examines who looks favorably at personalized Internet ads, and what kind of information most people are comfortable sharing with advertisers.

One comment, though, for those who compiled the report and tables: next time you provide data across the age groups, could you include also distributions for the total sample, as a reference point?

Twitter Sentiment Analyzers: Review

Chris Near of KDPaine & Partners reviews 5 tools for analyzing sentiment of posts on Twitter in the lastest issues of "The Measurement Standard".

 

Online Surveys: Plain Text or Rich Media?

Interesting white paper from DMS on "Respondent Technology Preferences in Online Surveys: Plain Text vs. Rich Media" (PDF)

Quantitative Methods Most Used in Market Research?

Ray Pointer of "The Future Place" blog is surveying market research professionals about the quantitative methods and procedures that they most often use in their line of work. Cast your vote, and don't forget to check the results - you will be suprised!

Based on the responses to surveys from about 70 people so far:

• Among the methods that are almost never used: Logit analysis (!!!), structural equation modeling, multidimensional scaling (!!!), and ANOVA (!!!)
• The most commonly used methods: simple correlational analysis, factor analysis, regression, and t- and z-tests.

Genre Classification Challenge from Google

Now this sounds interesting!

Why Twitter is far behind traditional media..

.. when it comes to measurement? The number of followers on Twitter has essentially the same meaning as circulation numbers for print media (magazines and newspapers): so many people subscribe to your content (or purchase it from newsstand). This number does NOT represent your real audience: people who ACTUALLY read your content on a regular basis, or read that particular tweet. In fact, print media is far ahead of Twitter when it comes to audience measurement: magazines now know how many people read any particular issue, or even how many people saw a particular ad (and responded to it, etc.) in that issue! That is why it is NOT right to use a number of followers on Twitter as a measure of your "influence" or personal "brand".

New Research on Twitter Users

New research on Twitter users from Harvard University, based on random sample of 300,000 users:

• Men are more likely to be followed than women (on average, 15% more likely). In particular, men are twice more likely to follow other men on Twitter;
• Both men and women tweet on average at the same rates;
• The median number of lifetime tweets is 1!