Here’s a chart that neatly shows how social media is driving a sizeable chunk of traffic towards news sites.

According to Comscore  at least 10% of visits to the top European newspaper websites are preceded by a visit to Facebook.

Previous stats have shown that Turkey in particular is a core Facebook territory, and so it’s no surprise that Facebook accounted for almost a fifth of visits to Milliyet.

However, in the UK both the Guardian and Mail, the UK’s (and two of the world’s) biggest online newspapers, had around 13% of traffic coming from the social media giant.  Significantly the Guardian saw the traffic it was getting from Facebook more than double from 4.6% in November 2010 to 12.8% in November 2011.

Overall, Comscore says that 50% of European Internet users visit online newspapers.

At the end of last year, the UK’s telecoms and media regulator Ofcom found that 51% of 18-24 year olds and 37% of 25-34 year olds use social channels for breaking news.

Related articles

• Almost 1 in 2 Europeans Visit Newspaper Sites (stateofsearch.com)
• Women, younger users now use social media for ‘breaking news’ (liesdamnedliesstatistics.com)
• Show me the sales. How does social media impact the bottom line? (liesdamnedliesstatistics.com)
• It’s a Facebook World (wir-sprechen-online.com)
• The UK’s Guardian newspaper notches 4m Facebook app installations in 2 months (thenextweb.com)
• Guardian’s Facebook app installed by more than 4 million users (guardian.co.uk)

Stats of the month – January

To kick off the New Year, here’s the second in my series of presentations about ten stats of the (previous) month.     Each slide has an embedded link for further information, and I’ve also included the text and link for each slide below:

 1 – Social networking has become the world’s most popular online activity

It accounts for 20% of Internet time and social networking sites now reach 82% of the world’s online population (Comscore)

In fact, there are now more Facebook users than Buddhists! (Rune Leth Andersen)

2 – At the same time, social media may be reaching saturation point in many markets

“Social is running out of hours.  Social is also running out of people” - George Colony, Forrester

Forrester says social media only slightly less popular than shopping and childcare

3 – As a result, the growth area for social remains emerging markets

According to Pew Research, out of 20 countries surveyed, the top three for the % of the total population on social media were Israel (53%), USA (50%) and the UK (50%)

However, if you look at the % of the Internet population on social media, the top three are Indonesia (86%), Russia (84%) and Egypt (82%)

4 – Facebook may have the numbers, but Twitter shapes the news agenda

Twitter was the most cited social network in the media in 2011, beating Facebook in 10/12 months – including Sept when Facebook’s new features were launched (Highbeam Research)

5 – The Internet is now Britain’s 2nd biggest news source

According to Oliver & Ohlbaum, 75% use the TV for news, 68% the Internet, 54% newspapers and 33% mobile

6 – Social media continues to chip away at traditional media use

In the UK, 18% read a printed national newspaper less due to social media use.  In Australia the figure is 21% and in the US it is 15% (Ofcom)

7 – Younger and female users of social media use it as a prime news source

51% of 18-24 year olds in the UK, 53% in the US, 61% in France and 61% in Italy use social channels for breaking news (Ofcom)

8- Social TV continues to rise in importance

More proof that social media and TV can effectively work hand in hand:

38% of Internet consumers have used a social network to recommend a TV programme and 29% often discuss what they are watching on TV in real-time online (Motorola)

9 – Apple dominates the mobile web

61% of European non PC Internet traffic comes from Apple ‘iDevices’, while in the US 92% of mobile purchases were made via iPhones and iPads (Comscore / RichRelevance)

10 – Instagram on track to becoming the world’s biggest mobile social network

Overtaking Foursquare (SocialFresh)

The December stats of the month can be found here

Related articles

• Vivek Wadhwa, WaPo: Social media will become a feature rather than the “big thing” (nextlevelofnews.com)
• Prediction #1: Social media slides down the pedestal (swordandthescript.com)
• Top 10 Social Networking Resolutions for Business in 2012 (ipwatchdog.com)
• The State of Social Media and Social Media Marketing in 2012 (slideshare.net)
• Surprise hit Pinterest a top 10 most-trafficked social network | Logicamp (logicamp.wordpress.com)

UK communications and media regulator OFCOM has come out with another mammoth piece of research, this time the international communications market report, covering the UK, US, Australia, France, Italy and Germany.

Some (mainly about Britain being a national of online shopaholics ) of it has already been covered in the mainstream press, so I’ve tried to dig out ten findings that didn’t get so much of an airing.   These include ones that look at how social media has replaced traditional media as a news source

1 – Ofcom’s research confirms Forrester’s earlier claims that social media is reaching saturation point.  78% of American, 75% of Australian and 70% of UK Internet users have set up social media profiles.

2 – Not surprisingly, Facebook is the social site most are familiar with.   In the US, 89% of social media users are on Facebook, with Twitter a distant 2nd on 24%.    In the UK, the figures are 83% and 22%.   Surprisingly in the UK Friends Reunited (remember them?)  still gets a strong showing

3 – As you would expect, younger social media users visit those sites more frequently than older users.    In the UK, 68%, in the US 69% and in Australia 61% of 18-24 year old social media users go online 2+ times a day.   This compares to 26% of 45-64 year olds in the UK, 28% in the US and 29% in Australia who access social media.

4 – Does social media use reduce traditional media use?   For a minority it does.   In the UK 14% and in the US 10% claim to now watch less TV because of online social use.  However, 18% of British social media users and 21% of Australian social media users say they read print newspapers less.

Those stats can be read in a number of different ways.  There is no doubt that print circulations are in terminal decline, the UK nationals losing the equivalent of Glasgow in sales over the past year.

At the same time, there is evidence that integrating social media into TV programming and promotions has a small boost for overall ratings.

5 – In the various markets surveyed by Ofcom, between 1/5 and 1/3 of social media users don’t change their privacy settings.   In the UK, the % that leave them be is 30%, in Australia it is 28% and in the US 26%

6 – Ofcom’s research again proves that social media is more female than male dominated.      In the UK 49% of female and 32% of male social media users regularly update their profiles.   In the US, the figures are 51% and 37% and in Australia 42% and 31%

7 – Male and female behaviour is also different on social channels.   Across all markets, women are more likely to use social media “to see what other people are saying and doing.”    In the UK, 63% of women and 51% of men use social media in this way, while in the US the figures are 71% women and 57% men.

8 – Just as social media may have caused some users to leave traditional media, more and more now use it as a primary news source.

In the UK, 51% of 18-24 year olds and 37% of 25-34 year olds use social channels for breaking news.    Again, women are different than men.   While 43% of British women on social media find out about breaking news on these sites, for UK men the % is 37%.

9 – OFCOM’s research debunks the myth that social media use cuts you off from the real world.     A third of British (34%) and Australian (32%) 18-24 year olds now engage more in their community.   In Italy and Germany, over 4/10 younger social media users are more active.

10 – Most social media users distrustful of what they see:   Finally a finding that is slightly at odds with an earlier OFCOM stat about trust in social media, more users are distrustful as opposed to trustful about what they see on social sites.

However, there is not surprisingly a lot of variation by age here, with the under 45s being twice as likely to trust what they see on social channels compared to the over 55s.

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Having come back after two weeks away, the main social media story in the UK involves Twitter knocking down so called ‘super injunctions.’

These are double gagging orders that the rich and famous employ to stop the media reporting about some scandal.  The double bit refers to the fact that they are not allowed to say that the injunction exists in the first place.

The use of Twitter to get around the UK’s antiquated defamation laws has resulted in the social network breaking its UK traffic record – Time Magazine has a good explanation of the back-story for non UK readers.

The latest twist involves a footballer referred to in court as “CTB” allegedly involved in an affair with a reality TV star.

CTB is taking legal action against Twitter to force the social network to reveal the identities of people behind the accounts who have been talking about the alleged affair.   Symbolic of the inability of the old order to keep up with the new, the footballer in question was according to the Daily Mail being named 16x per minute on Twitter this afternoon (a 5 sec search is enough to tell you who CTB is supposed to be).

The reaction from the parts of the legal establishment has been predictable.  According to the appropriately named lord chief justice, Lord Judge, “modern technology was totally out of control.”

According to Lord Judge, readers place greater trust in the content of traditional media than those who ‘peddle lies’ on websites (via The Guardian).

Actually they don’t.  This is what OFCOM, an official body a bit like the US FCC, has to say on the matter:

1 – 34% of UK consumers trust and 43% don’t trust what they read in newspapers, or a difference of minus nine
2 – 36% of UK consumers trust and 33% don’t trust what they see on social networks, or a difference of plus three (news websites are actually the media commanding the highest trust ratio)

It’s a fundamental point and one which large parts of the establishment hasn’t really grasped yet.   Until they do, expect social networks to continue to blow holes in any attempts by the law to control what can and can’t be read, heard or seen.

(Above – the rise of CTB mentions on Twitter over Fri and Saturday)

Related articles

• “Footballer seeks Twitter answers” and related posts (rocketnews.com)
• Footballer sparks Twitter storm (bbc.co.uk)
• VIDEO: UK court demand causes Twitter trouble (bbc.co.uk)
• Footballer sues Twitter and its users for threatening to reveal his name for having an affair (ubergizmo.com)

When referring to the shift from ‘old’ to ‘new’ media one piece of research I talk about again and again is a question Ofcom (the UK equivalent to the FCC) regularly asks consumers – what one piece of media can you not live without?   I use it, as it is a stat that gets to the bottom of which media really matters to the consumer

Previous results showed that TV is still far in front with the Internet a  distant second and newspapers nowhere to be seen.   But for 18-25 year olds things were somewhat different.   Mobile phones and not PCs+Internet were in second place.   TV was in front, but not by much.

The latest results have changed and an important milestone has been crossed:

TV remains the most-missed media for UK adults as a whole, although this has decreased from 50% in 2009 to 44% in 2010.   But for the first time, adults aged 16-24 mention using a mobile phone (28%) and using the internet (26%) ahead of watching television (23%).     Result – TV only campaigns are increasingly leaving consumers behind, and if you haven’t got a mobile element you are missing a lot of young adults completely.

Trust in social media increases
Another key stat: Trust in information relayed via social media and online media as a whole has increased.

34% trust what they read in newspapers, while 59% trust what they read on news websites.  Related to that, as another study showed, online articles command more attention than their print equivalents.

However at the same time, more consumers now trust rather than distrust what they see on social networks – 36% vs 33%.   That trust is most likely to be highest among women, 16-35 year olds and ‘AB’ higher earners.

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• Young people ‘would rather live without TV than mobiles or net’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Global Mobile Broadband Market To Be Worth US$ 233 Billion By 2015 But ARPU Will Decline (telecomjunction.wordpress.com)

The other week I talked about Nielsen figures showing that in the US at least, the older you are the more TV you watch.   However, that doesn’t mean that the television is being abandoned completely.

A study from Frank Magid Associates shows that only 1% of digital TV subscribers in the US have cancelled their subscriptions because they get everything that they want online (via MediaPost). In fact, only 2.5% of US media consumers use the Internet exclusively for video content.

Indeed, people who watch video via the Web seem to be entertainment junkies who indulge through a variety of different platforms.  Frank Magid associates says that “consumers using the greatest number of alternative platforms also tend to spend the most money on traditional subscription services.”

As a result, online video consumers are not so-called cord cutters.   Instead they see the Web as one element of their overall TV experience.

Earlier this year the UK regulatory authority Ofcom found that the most popular YouTube channels were variations of mainstream media properties.   And then there is the much talked about return of appointment or social TV where laptops or iPhones are used side by side with the television set to share the experience with a wider online audience of friends.

Image – From dhammza

Related articles

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• comScore to Track “Three-Screen” Video Usage, CEO Magid Abraham (beet.tv)
• US cable TV bleeds subscribers as online grows (showbizandstyle.inquirer.net)
• Web TV viewers are ‘cord keepers’ and not cutters (liesdamnedliesstatistics.com)

Does watching online content make you less likely to watch ordinary TV?   Not at all, says metrics group Nielsen (via Hollywood Reporter) and the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), which say that Web TV viewers are if anything “cord keepers” rather than cutters.

Nielsen surveyed a group of Americans that watch at least some TV or movies via the Internet on their TV sets.    The research showed that 84% were watching as much, if not more, scheduled TV.   And discovering a programme on the Web can then often result in you watching it via the normal means on scheduled TV – this was the case for 53% of respondents.

CTAM says that these results show how the Internet is often used to enhance someone’s enjoyment of a particular show, and not replace it with something else.   It also links into stats that show that the most popular YouTube channels are more often than not variations of what you will see on TV anyway.   According to Ofcom, in the UK that includes BBC Worldwide, X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent – all mainstream broadcast properties.

Related articles

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This is a point that’s been made countless times, for example by Ofcom in the UK and Pew Research in the US – people who regularly consume traditional media are older, often 55+.

Harris Interactive (via Marketing Charts) carried out research for the Wall Street Journal about US media consumption habits.   Two stats that could be contradictory:   67% said “I prefer to get my news in more traditional ways”, while 50% said “I tend to get almost all my news online.”

However, I guess the key word is ‘prefer.’   Consumers may want their news from a newspaper or TV programme, but often they’ve switched into a routine which means that’s not actually happening.

And the key differences by age?   81% of the over 55s prefer to get their news via traditional media compared to 57% of the under 35s.   And while only a third (that many?) of the over 55s get their regular news diet online, for the under 35s that jumps to 65%.

Related articles

• Troubles for Traditional Media – Both Print and Television (prnewswire.com)
• Why You Need Social Media and Traditional Media to be successful (socialmediatoday.com)
• OJR: Why traditional journalists join the online ‘bandwagon’ (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

A quarter (25.9%) of consumers in the big five European Union countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) now browse the Internet via their mobile phones.   This is according to comscore’s MobileLens survey (via Marketing Charts), which shows that the rates of mobile Internet use range from 36.7% in the UK to 20.4% in Germany.

The UK also leads in the % that accessed news (36.5% compared to the European average of 29.7%) and accessed a social network while on their mobiles (23.8% vs 14.9%).   It’s Italy however that has the highest rate of Smartphone users (33.6%), while Spain (56.1%) has the highest number of 3G subscribers.

It should be said that the UK figures are a little different to Ofcom’s recent Communications Market Report (summary here), which showed that only 18% of Brits access the Internet via their mobiles – however comscore’s figures come from June, while Ofcom’s report is a comprehensive year in review and so draws data from Q1.

Comscore says that the number of mobile music users has grown by 10% over the past year, meaning that there are now 54 million consumers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain who listen to music via their mobiles – or 23.8% of the total.

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• UK citizens flocking to the mobile web (v3.co.uk)
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An earlier post was all about the (UK) Ofcom Communications Market Report and the way in which TV and social media campaigns can work in tandem.

Deloitte has now looked into this as well, releasing a report to coincide with the upcoming Edinburgh Television Festival.   Deloitte commissioned research among 4000+ adults, and found that, as much as people like myself talk about ‘social TV’, only 7% of those polled had become fans of their favourite programmes.

At the same time, the generational shift that Ofcom found in its research, also comes into play here.   Among 18-24 year olds, 46% liked their favourite shows on Facebook.

Also, Deloitte’s research is about actively liking a programme, there is of course a stage before that of people simply tweeting about live TV while its taking place, or exchanging Facebook / IM messages about it.

TV ads skipped by 86%

Another reason why combining online +TV could become more attractive for brands could come down to 86% of viewers with PVRs skipping ads. This is the result of a second Deloitte study conducted to coincide with the Edinburgh TV Festival.

In fact, it’s younger viewers, the very ones likely to be online, who are more receptive to advertising messages.   Deloitte found that while a third of over 55s said that no form of advertising impacted them, only 13% of under 25s felt the same.

Image – ccharmon

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