Forrester Blogs › Category: Social Technographics

The Data Digest: Profiling Creators

Posted by Reineke Reitsma on the Data Insights Professionals Blog on October 12, 2012

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Reineke Reitsma

Creators sit at the top of Forrester’s Social Technographics® ladder: They are the consumers who write blogs and articles, upload self-created video and music, post photos, and maintain their own web pages. More than any other group, Creators are shaping the face of consumer content online. We recently published a report called “Exploring The Social Technographics® Ladder: Creators.” It shows that Creators are great advocates for the brands they like, and that they have, on average, many more friends and followers to share their opinions with than any other group.

However, what was really intriguing is how much they value feedback from companies and brands. Even more importantly, more Creators expect companies to respond to positive posts about products/services than to negative ones.

This is contrary to popular belief. In fact, there’s plenty of advice out there on what you should do in a crisis or how to respond to someone who’s posted a complaint. There’s not much advice on how to handle positive feedback, but in fact, it’s one of the best ways to trigger (and motivate) your brand advocates.

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Global Social Technographics Update 2011: US And EU Mature, Emerging Markets Show Lots Of Activity

Posted by Gina Sverdlov on the Data Insights Professionals Blog on January 4, 2012

Gina Sverdlov

Last month George Colony, CEO of Forrester, talked about a “Social Thunderstorm” at the LeWeb conference in Paris. He argued that social is running out of hours and running out of people. What does that mean? Well, the second one is easy: The vast majority of consumers around the world who have access to a computer use social media. And the first one? George goes on to say that Americans are spending more time on social media than volunteering, praying, talking on the phone, emailing, or even exercising.

With so many people spending so much time on social media, it is crucial for companies to understand how their customers use social media. We just released our newest report, Social Media Adoption In 2011, which reveals the latest trends.

The report illustrates how consumers are using social media by applying our Social Technographics® global classification system. The graphic below illustrates this framework. We classify consumers into seven groups based on online activities, and consumers can fall into several different groups. Only Inactives are an exclusive group.

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The Data Digest: The Profile Of Digital Moms

Posted by Reineke Reitsma on the Data Insights Professionals Blog on December 9, 2011

Reineke Reitsma

Since 2007, Forrester has been advising companies about how to use its POST— people, objectives, strategy, technology — methodology to develop social media strategies that help them engage with their audiences via social media. Since then, social media uptake has grown enormously, and brands now have a multitude of social platforms from which to choose. Before you decide which platforms to go with, do you actually know where your audience is in the social media world?

Even today, when social media usage is close to mainstream in the US, different target groups still show different behaviors. For example, when you want to target moms, you have to understand what makes them tick online.

Forrester’s Technographics data shows that the majority (71%) of US female Internet users are Joiners and Spectators. They maintain their profiles on social networking sites and actively consume shared content online. This shows that it is important for brands to have a website, a blog, videos on YouTube, and a social network presence. It is also important for brands to update the information on their website or social network profile regularly and make it both informative and entertaining.

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New Forrester Report: Fight Social Media Stagnation

Posted by Augie Ray on the Marketing Leadership Professionals Blog on November 11, 2010

Six weeks ago, Forrester published a report some found shocking: "A Global Update Of Social Technographics®" noted that “social behaviors that require creating content have seen no substantial growth in adoption since 2009; in fact, some behaviors have experienced attrition.” After years of tracking demonstrable year-over-year growth in consumers' social behaviors, it seems the social train has ground to a halt. I created a blog post on the topic, but this didn’t seem nearly sufficient for such an important change in the most significant trend to hit marketing since the Internet went public in 1995. So today Forrester is publishing the report, “Fight Social Media Stagnation.” 

The data speaks for itself — since 2007, every category of Social Technographic behavior (other than Inactives) demonstrated constant growth each year, but in 2010 that trend changed. Why? In part because we’re now reaching a point of social media saturation. With Joiners (those who maintain a profile on a social network) currently encompassing 59% of US online adults, it is inevitable that the growth of social behaviors would slow. The social media battle for the hearts and minds of US consumers has been fought and won!

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Why Are Social Behaviors Plateauing?

Posted by Augie Ray on the Marketing Leadership Professionals Blog on September 28, 2010

Since 2007, Forrester has tracked the growth of social behaviors.  For years we’ve seen increases in more complex social behaviors such as Creators—those who generate social content including YouTube videos and blog posts.  But for the first time, we’re seeing a change in the growth trend.  Our latest 2010 Global Social Technographics report demonstrates that many social behaviors have reached a plateau.  Why, and what does this mean to marketers?

There is not a single answer to those questions.  The reasons span things as complex as human nature and as simple as Web site usability.  For example, is it sensible to believe that Creator behavior will ever be universal? Not every person has a burning need to be a reporter, an industry expert, a videographer, a musician, a thought leader, an editor or a broadcaster.  The fact that more than 1 in 5 online adults in the US are exhibiting Creator behavior is a testament to how social technologies have lowered the bar, since these tools have allowed more people to create and distribute their ideas, opinions and creations than was ever possible in the past. 

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The Data Digest: Twitter And Social Technographics

Posted by Reineke Reitsma on the Data Insights Professionals Blog on January 22, 2010

Reineke Reitsma

This week, Forrester released the 'new and improved' Social Technographics. Over two years ago we introduced Social Technographics, a way to analyze your market's social technology behavior. In these years we've seen that with the rapid pace of technology adoption, the rungs on the ladder have shown steady growth, with some (like Joiners) growing faster than others (like Creators). In these years we have helped clients understand the social media uptake of their customers with data for 13 countries, and for various segments and brands. But, in the past year we did feel we missed out on something: Twitter.

As you can see from the graphic, we added a new rung, "Conversationalists". Conversationalists reflects two changes. First, it includes people who update their social network status to converse (both in Facebook as twitter). And second, we include only people who update at least weekly, since anything less than this isn't much of a conversation.

Social techno new

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