BLINQ Media White Paper Questions Social Media Myths

Today, BLINQ Media just released a new white paper that’s very academic (read: you need a high school education to read it) but still accessible enough for marketers invested in marketing through Facebook and other social media channels.

I’ll share some highlights below, but it’s important to note that this is a first step. This shouldn’t be seen as universally applicable to all Facebook applications and social media campaigns. The data is from a single application developer, albeit one that recorded 9.1 million users and 117 million actions. Data for gender and ages should vary based on the nature of applications, and much of the data should stem from the nature of this application.

It is a good start though. Produced in conjunction with the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, it gives a snap shot of application power users and the lifecycle for application usage. Consider the graph below, available on Flickr, showing precisely how the small number of power users on the right side account for most of the interactions:

 

Other report highlights, from the press update:

• A small percentage of the users accounted for a large percentage of the activity. For example, only 6% of the users were responsible for 56% of the activity.
• Not all users are in the 18-24 age bracket as assumed: The top 50% of high activity users of the social media app were 32 or older, while the lower app activity users were predominately 32 and younger (80%).
• While females represented the largest group of application users (73%), 54% of the men were more likely to be heavy app users.
• The majority of users (70%) took over 30 days to respond to a gifting request. Acceptance activity picked up after 30 days and continued until 132 days later.