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Forrester M&S Blogs

August 25, 2009

Social technology growth marches on in 2009, led by social network sites

by Josh Bernoff

We just published our third annual Social Technographics Profile in a document called "The Broad Reach of Social Technologies" . The author is Sean Corcoran, with help from out data expert Cynthia Pflaum. The data across North America, Europe, and Asia will be available later today.is now available.

Forrester Social Technographics Ladder 2009 Starting with the book "Groundswell" and continuing now for three years running, we've analyzed consumers' participation in social technologies around the world with a tool called the "Social Technographics Profile." The profile puts online people into overlapping groups based on their participation (at least once a month) in the behaviors shown in the ladder. We've kept the ladder categories consistent to allow us to make comparisons year-to-year, across ages and genders, and across geographies. This provides something that's often sorely lacking in analysis of online social phenomena: perspective.

The headline: in 2009, more than four out of five online Americans are active in either creating, participating in, or reading some form of social content at least once a month. In a bit more detail:

  • In the US, social technology Creators and Collectors grew slowly, and Critics didn't grow at all. Creator activity appeals only to those who like to create or upload content, and regardless of the ease of blogging and YouTube uploading, this doesn't apply to everybody. If you believe in the future that everybody will be creating or organizing content, we disagree -- it's a matter of temperament, not technology. As for Critics, those who react to content, this group hasn't grown at all. Looking deeper into the data, this is a result of a small but actual decrease in the number of people contributing to discussion forums. Why? Probably because much of this activity has been sucked into social network sites like Facebook.
  • At the same time, Joiner activity exploded and Spectators became nearly universal. The explosion in Joiners from 35% to 51% of online Americans reflects the appeal of Facebook, as both press coverage and invitations from friends suck more of us into social networks. Meanwhile, Spectators -- those consuming social content -- reached all the way to 73% of online Americans, which should end any remaining skepticism about whether this social thing is real. Soon, with the level of social content being put out there, it will be virtually impossible for an online consumer not to be a Spectator. Marketers, if you're not doing social technology applications now, you're officially behind. We expect a wave of Web site reorgs and redesigns to include social activity.

Forrester Social Technographics Profile 2009 Looking at the data by age, we now see that participation among those under 35 is nearly universal (less than 10% Inactives) and even among those 55 and over, about two-thirds are participating. The trend is clear, soon, if you're online, you'll almost certainly be consuming social technologies.

We are now releasing international data at the same time as this US data. A few highlights: Europeans continue to adopt these technologies more slowly than in the US, with about 40% Inactives in the countries where we do surveys. The Netherlands and Sweden have the most participation, Italy has the most Creators, and social networks are most popular in the UK. For more details see the summary of Rebecca Jennings' report on social technologies in Europe.

Asian social participation is typically as high as or higher than in the US. For example South Korea, where I'm going next week, has only 9% Inactives and 48% Joiners, as a result of the popular CyWorld social network site.

The international data by country, age, and gender is here. will be available later today. You can even put the data on your own site -- we've made it embeddable. In my travels, I've found that marketers have a variety of attitudes about social technologies, ranging from "it's obvious that they're growing" to "it's a flash in the pan". The point of data like this is to provide a real, solid, objective basis for planning and discussion that goes beyond personal experience. No matter who you market to, and in what country, you need to know what your customers are doing. These surveys can help you take that first step+.

Added: Since the embeddable widget with the new data is now available, I've posted it below:

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 09:00 AM in Data, Groundswell, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (27) | TrackBack (2)

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February 23, 2009

New research: B2B buyers have very high social participation

by Josh Bernoff

Today we are publishing our research on one of the most active groups of people I've ever seen when it comes to social participation -- buyers in the business-to-business sector.

This research report, "The Social Technographics of Business Buyers," was published by Laura Ramos and Oliver Young in our Technology Industry/B2B group; you can access the full report if you're a Forrester client. Or anyone can register to hear the replay of Laura's Webinar on the topic.

Just as we survey consumers, Forrester also surveys business buyers. We use the POST method and the same Social Technographics Profile to review buyers' behavior -- in this case it's over 1200 buyers in American and European countries. But the difference here is, we can ask, not just how people participate in these social technologies, but whether they use them to make buying decisions.

The results were startling, to say the least.

B2b_social_participation_2

Some highlights from this research (start by looking at the right two columns):

  • 91% of these technology decision-makers were Spectators -- the highest number I've ever seen in a Social Technographics Profile. This means you can count on the fact that your buyers are reading blogs, watching user generated video, and participating in other social media. Note that 69% of them said they were using this technology for business purposes.
  • Only 5% are non-participants (Inactives).
  • 55% of these decision-makers were in social networks (Joiners) -- despite as mature businesspeople and not college students, you'd think they'd be participating a lot less.
  • 43% are creating media (blogs, uploading videos or articles, etc.) and 58% are Critics, reacting to content they see in social formats. Again the numbers are very high compared to other groups we've surveyed, and again the level of participation for business purposes is also very high.

What does this mean for you? If you're a B2B marketer and you're not using social technologies in your marketing, it means you're late. We've seen a lot of excellent activity here from the likes of Dell and National Instruments (both won Forrester Groundswell awards) but a lot of the blogs, communities, and other social outreach from business to business companies is less than mature, to say the least. This is your chance to stand out. Take this report and show it to your boss to convince her that it's time to get started.

The report includes some good recommendations for B2B buyers, including the following:

  • Note that buyers use social technology but don't rate it highly in terms of its influence on their buying decisions. This, despite the fact that count on peers' opinions to make decisions. I think this reflects that people haven't gotten used to this sort of information as a key input in buying decisions. This will change, especially as better applications come on line.
  • Social applications should be integrated into other marketing. For example, National Instruments makes technical content from its customer community central in its marketing activity -- this is a model other B2B sellers should follow.
  • Reach out to people by role -- people with the same job description form natural communities. This is a technique IBM SOA marketer Sandy Carter has described in her book "The Language of Marketing 2.0"

There's a lot more in the report, and you can also find B2B social insights from thinkers like Paul Gillin and Chris Herbert. Given the high degree of participation, I think B2B marketers will continue to lead in social media marketing.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 08:30 AM in Data, Groundswell, Marketing, Weekly data chart | | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

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June 08, 2008

Data chart of the week: forums, ratings, and reviews around the world

by Josh Bernoff

More data from around the world -- and from Chapter 2 of Groundswell.

As a companion to our data charts of social networks and blogs and user-generated video around the world, here's a look at forums, ratings, and reviews around the world.

Groundswell table 2-3

Unlike our previous international data cuts, this one is far more likely to reflect cultural differences than the prevalence of specific sites in a country's home language. We again see the advanced participation of Japanese and Americans in discussion forum. Koreans participate a lot less -- any Koreans out there that can shed light on this?

As for ratings and reviews, more than one in five online consumers read them in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. (Note that this includes only people who read them once a month or more -- there are doubtless a lot of less frequent readers of ratings.) Americans, Japanese, and Koreans are the most likely to write reviews -- Brits and the French have the lowest proportion of ratings readers who are writers as well.

These "Web 1.0" technologies are the mainstay of the groundswell. They're easy to use, easy to participate in, easy to benefit from. All they require is that you react to what's in front of you. That's why Critics are biggest of the active elements of the Social Technographics ladder -- and why I think they'll grow to include more and more online consumers every year, in every country in the world.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 09:58 PM in Data, Groundswell, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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June 01, 2008

Data chart of the week: social networks around the world

by Josh Bernoff

There's a lot of speculation about social networks, and predictions usually go in one of two directions:

  • This is growing and soon everybody will be on one (or more than one)
  • This is a fad and even the college students will tire of it eventually.

(You could also call these the "Facebook is worth $20 Billion" and "Facebook is worth nothing" factions.)

To add fuel to the debate, this week's data chart, from Chapter 2 of Groundswell looks at participation in social networks around the world.

social networks by country

Important caveats on this data -- while these surveys were all taken with 6 months of each other 2007, the methodologies are not the same: US is an online survey, Europe is a mail survey, and Asia is a telephone survey. In each case, the base is all online consumers, and people were asked the question "do you visit a social networking site at least monthly?" or "how frequently do you visit a social networking site?" with examples from their own country. We count only those who visit at least monthly.

That said, this variation is fascinating, to me at least.

Does Korea have the highest participation because of CyWorld, or because Koreans love to connect?

Why are Germany, and especially France, so low? Is it something about the way French people behave online, or is there an opening for a great French social network (or the French version of an existing one, like Facebook)?

Charlene says that in the future, social networks will be like air, surrounding everything. If she's right, the very nature of this question will change.

I challenge you -- will the US become like Korea, and will France become like either one? What do you think?

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 03:53 PM in Data, Josh's posts, Social networking, Weekly data chart | | Comments (14) | TrackBack (1)

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May 26, 2008

Data chart of the week: social profiles for elements of a segmentation

by Josh Bernoff

So far, all of our Social Technographics Profile examples have used consumer behavior or attitude variables, like a comparison of car owners by brand or an analysis of Alpha moms. But we're finding, increasingly, that clients don't want to hear about the profile of the customers. They want to hear about a profile of their customer segments.

Most companies that sell to large numbers of people have segmented their customers. A retailer analyzes its shoppers and finds some come for convenience, some for price, and some for selection -- and some because their mom shopped there. Or an electronics manufacturer creates low-end easy-to-use products for the technology laggards and high-end sophisticated products for the early adopters.

Segmentation is smart if you use it to design products and marketing plans for different groups of customers. If you're growing a product line, it may be essential. Typically, a research project leads to customer insights, which leads to a segmentation, which leads to actions based on those segments. So when creating a social application for these segments, you need to ask -- which strategies apply to which customers?

Here's a good example. A large communications company had already segmented its customers and came to us with segment descriptions. Using the descriptions, we profiled three of the segments. The results are shown below. (The client's name and the descriptions of the segments are proprietary, I can't share them.)

stp segments

What would you do if these were your customer segments?

Here's what we told the client.

First, the two segments shown here in blue are extremely active with social technologies -- some of the most active groups we've seen. We recommended creating groups within Facebook to engage them, building idea communities, and identifying and energizing customers by monitoring blogs and social networks. Failing to engage with these customers is a big mistake. Furthermore, although the company had identified two separate segments, we recommended using the same programs for both segments, since they have such similar profiles.

The third segment, shown in orange, features 61% Inactives and only 20% Joiners -- well below average. We recommended spending marketing money on this segment elsewhere, rather than on social programs, which would be difficult to get going with a profile like this.

One final note. Both in this project and another similar one for a beverage company, we found the companies had difficulty identifying their own segments! The first time this happened, I found it strange, but twice made me think it's a pattern. For any companies out there planning or implementing a segmentation, remember: you need some mechanism to identify who's in those segments. If you think segementation leads to insight and then you're done, you'll may find it frustrating (as we did) to take those segments further into a realm like targeting for social applications.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 02:02 PM in Data, Weekly data chart | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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May 19, 2008

Data "point" of the week: Data alone is not enough

by Josh Bernoff

I've been thinking about data lately. This is partly because of Bill's comment on our last Data Chart of The Week (Seniors) and also the responses we got to Part 1 of our recent Webinar series. In the Webinar, I chose to focus almost exclusively on several Social Technographics Profiles -- data about how different groups of people use social technologies -- and while most of the responses were positive, a few people responded that they were unsatisfied with the result.

Confession: I love data. I helped start Forrester's first consumer surveys, called Technographics, in 1997, and I love the idea that we can answer consumer behavior questions around the world now. As an analyst, I love having the ability to dive into data and find the answers to a client's behavioral or attitudinal question. And I find it endlessly fascinating to see how people's attitudes vary with age, or where they live, or from year to year. Having the ability to ask questions of the form "I wonder if people . . ." and actually get the answer is intoxicating. That's why data about People is the first step in the POST method for social technology strategy formation.

But data isn't the whole story. Data looks backward, and answers only questions you thought to ask. Surveys have biases. They have margins of error and sample size issues. I believe our surveys are the best, most comprehensive set of data available anywhere on technology. That said, if you start and end with data alone, you will go wrong.

That's why we always try to provide analysis along with, or driving, or surrounding the data we present, which creates the basis for intelligent decision-making.

There are experts on this stuff, most notably my colleague Brad Bortner. But I've learned a few things myself in a decade of research with consumers. So rather than present more data this week, I will offer up these bits of advice:

  • Better to have data than to trust your gut. In the absence of data about your market, youi are driving blind. You intuition about your customers may be right, and it may not. (It's useful to remember that in every stock trade, one side expects the stock to go up and the other does not -- why are you so sure you are smarter than everyone else.) If you can get access to consumer behavioral data about what you're doing, then by all means study it.
  • Data is not insight. What does it mean that 40 year-olds are twice as likely to create social content than 20 year olds? That depends on what you want to do about it. Use data to start and bolster your argument. Then ask, "Is there any other way to interpret this?"
  • Check the source and the base. All Forrester data charts have a source (typically a survey) and a base (the group of people surveyed). The source will tell you when the survey was conducted -- and data is perishable, since people's attitudes change over time. The base us important to -- is it online consumers, people with mobile phones, or people in metropolitan China? Sample size is also important -- results from 200 people are interesting, but clearly not as as solid at results from 10,000. That's why I can tell you the social Technographics profile of people who own Mercurys, but not people who own Hummers -- we only reach a dozen or so of the latter.
  • Protect against bias. All surveys have bias -- most notably, they reach only people willing to take surveys. Another common bias is "social desirability bias" -- people want to believe they are better than they are. This is why PBS gets higher ratings in diaries than when measured with a meter. Always ask "is there a bias here that could reduce the value of this data?"
  • Beware of overinterpretation of a question. I will often show survey data in the form of a question and the percent who gave various answers. An audience member will ask "did they mean this, or did they  mean that?" It's a hard question to answer, since I wasn't in the brain of the person answering. Strictly speaking, they read the question and they gave the answer -- it's up to you to interpret. Similarly, just because people participate in discussion forums doesn't mean they want to talk about your products. Data gives you a feel for how people are thinking, but it's still up to you to engage them.

I promise to keep showing you data, but always with a context on what to do about it. What bits of advice do you have about working with data?

P.S. To language purists. I know the convention is to treat "data" as the plural of "datum" and all credible statisticians do so. I also know, in my conversations with businesspeople, that they often use "data" as a singular. Since that's who I talk to, that's how I use the word. "The data are" just sounds wrong to these people, so I avoid it.



Posted by Josh Bernoff at 11:18 AM in Data, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

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May 11, 2008

Data chart of the week: Seniors

by Josh Bernoff

This week we'll look at a group that gets less attention online, seniors. (If you're new to this weekly data chart or the Social Technographics Profile, check out the previous weekly data charts.) This chart is from Chapter 3 of Groundswell.

Groundswell figure 3-7

This chart raises an interesting question. Let's say your product is aimed at seniors -- like Flomax, or retirement communities. Obviously, your market isn't nearly as active in social applications, with less than 10% Creators and under 40% Spectators. Should you give up on the idea?

Not necessarily, but you'd better proceed with caution. Here are some situations in which approaching seniors with social technology makes sense:

  • You only spend a little. Sometimes it's worth it to reach 30% of your market, especially the most active 30%. Just don't blow your whole budget on social applications.
  • You tap into existing communities. Eons won't let you in until you're 49. Gather hits a more mature audience than most social networks. You can reach the social portion of your older audience more easily there, since they've done work of recruiting.
  • Your audience has a strong need to connect. Cancer patients are a lot older than the average consumer. They're also strongly attracted to connecting with fellow sufferers and sharing support and information. As a result, the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors Network is extremely active, despite having a lot of older Americans in it.
  • You make it easy. The imbalance between Spectators and Creators is especially vivid among seniors. This puts the onus on you to help them out. Seed your networks and applications with content and make it effortless to respond. Seniors are a lot more likely to participate if you make the on-ramps easy to navigate.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 11:53 AM in Data, Groundswell, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

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May 05, 2008

Data chart of the week: international blog and user-generated video participation

by Josh Bernoff

In today's post we're showing off our international data capabilities with some data about participation in creating and consuming content in different geographies. This is the first table in Chapter 2 of Groundswell.

Groundswell table 2-1

I find it amazing what a high degree of variability there is in this data. Note that this reflects percentage of online consumers only. These surveys were done between March and September of 2007.

The blog readership and commenting numbers in Japan and South Korea area astounding. I believe this is where North America is going. I'm at a loss to explain the relatively low level of participation in Germany  and the UK -- any ideas on why this is happening? In the UK, I don't know of any cultural reason why online participants should be reticent to read blogs -- I expect this to reach par with the US (or it may already have done so).

It's an interesting pattern that approximately half of those who read blogs comment on them, with somewhat fewer writing. I'd love to know why readership of blogs is higher in Japan, but writing blogs is more common in South Korea.

The US is the clear leader in both creation and viewing of user-generated video, which is at least partly due to the fact that YouTube is mostly in English. (I refuse to believe we have more idiots making idiotic video in the U.S. -- we don't have a way to survey that!) Given the very high bandwidth available in Japan and Korea I would have expected higher participation there -- is this cultural, or is it because there is more production quality video (on-line television) in these geographies?

Podcasts still haven't caught on the US after years of availability. And they're non-existent in Korea. I am skeptical that these numbers will increase significantly in the U.S. or that other parts of the world will surpass the U.S. number.

One note: we use different survey methodologies around the world (for example, what you see here came from mail surveys in Europe and online surveys in the U.S.) Also, the surveys were not taken in the same month. So direct comparisons are subject to significant variation that's not explained by geography.

If you found this data interesting, you can learn more. We have social technographic profiles from around the world available free. And clients can get access to all of our survey data.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 12:07 PM in Blogs, Book, Data, Groundswell, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

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April 28, 2008

Data chart of the week: who do people trust?

by Josh Bernoff

For today's weekly data chart we'll look at a different kind of data for a change -- not a Social Technographics Profile but some attitudinal data that's highlighted in Groundswell. Today's question is: whom do you trust?

groundswell figure 7-1

As you can see, 83% trust the word of a friend. But perhaps one of the more interesting points is that the number who trust consumer reviews by people they never met on a retailer's site (like eBags, the example in Groundswell) is 60%, only slightly lower than "a review by a known expert."

Why do people trust strangers?

They don't, not as individuals. But they do in groups. Strangers are assumed not to have an axe to grind. If 100 people on eBags say a laptop bag is great, then it is great. If they say it's inferior, then it is inferior. Regardless of what a so-called "expert" might say.

What does this mean for your brand?

It means that a focus on "influencers" is not enough. You never know who may be reviewing your product, or where. Influencers may touch a lot of people, but so do the masses of reviewers on Yelp, or Amazon.com, or TripAdvisor. And heaven forbid you get people talking about your brand on The Consumerist.

If most of your customers like you, the lesson is this: help them to talk. Install ratings and reviews on your site. Create a blog and let them respond. Give them online tools and energize them. And embrace the fan groups they form on social networks. Fan the flames.

What if your customers don't like you? Shutting them up is not an option. My only useful case study for this is Dell, which (1) started to seek out bloggers who were complaining and solved their problems to make them happier and (2) actually improved their customer service. That's expensive. But if you're in a cutthroat market it's required.

Frankly, I don't have a completely satisfactory answer, so I'm throwing it open to you. What should a company with a poor customer reputation do about social media? Join the discussion about it on our discussion board.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 04:28 PM in Data, Groundswell, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

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April 21, 2008

Data chart of the week: car brands

By Josh Bernoff

Today we release our fourth data chart.

Our surveys cover hundreds of brands including retailers, computers, cars, and financial services companies. This allows our analysis to go far beyond what you can learn from demographics, like the profiles from our profile tool. For example, we recently published an analysis of 13 car brands and their owners. Below is a subset of four interesting brands. (You can see the full analysis if you’re a Forrester client or you buy the report; otherwise the link above will show you only the abstract.)

Social_technographics_profile_cars

In every market we examine, patterns emerge. Some brands have intensely engaged customers – those brands are missing the boat if they don’t get started with social applications rapidly. Others have slower moving customers – they can affort to wait. And even among those with high engagement, the type of social participation varies.

In this case, we see that Pontiac owners have very few Inactives and the most Joiners of the four brands. With 30% Joiners (social network participants), it’s imperative that Pontiac connect with its owners where they’re already connecting with others. In fact, Pontiac started a college scholarship “Game Changing Performance” campaign on Facebook.

Honda has the most Critics, at 29%, but Honda hasn’t yet created a blog for them to react to, even though Technorati shows over 300 blog posts linking to the Honda site. The top Honda blogs are on automotive.com and motortrend.com, plus one maintained by a fan.

Jeep has the most Creators, at 22%. Sure enough, YouTube shows almost 40,000 Jeep videos and there are hundreds of Jeep blogs. I hope that Jeep is monitoring this activity through a service like Cymfony; it’s an important source of feedback and insight.

Of the 13 brands that had enough customers to allow us to do a profile, Mercury had the most Inactives. In my opinion, brands with a profile like Mercury’s shouldn’t put aside much budget for social applications, aside from maybe some basic monitoring or a private community from a company like Communispace. What would you do if you were a brand manager at Mercury?

Plug: this post is sponsored by our Technographics team. They want to hear from you if you're interested in data like this about your brand.

Posted by Josh Bernoff at 12:01 AM in Data, Josh's posts, Weekly data chart | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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