A blog post with the catchy title – “Do You Think Social Has Jumped the Shark?” – caught my eye recently, mostly because I would adamantly suggest “Not at All”.
To the author’s credit, they concede that as an “early adopter”, they’re inclined to feel that things are only shiny and cool until the mainstream adopts them as well.
That said, it is important for early adopters/social media enthusiasts/the digerati/blogosphere to recognize it’s still early days for social media even though many of their friends and colleagues are actively using social media tools and services.
This was illustrated by an Anderson Analytics report that suggests about 110 million people in the U.S., or 36% of the total population, use social media regularly.
While impressive, it also means that 64% of the U.S. population doesn’t use social media on a regular basis. (Hat tip to Social Media Today for providing the report’s highlights).
The Anderson report also found that:
* 61% of social media users are under age 35
* 55% of social media users are female
* 29% of Facebook and LinkedIn users say they could “probably do without” the popular networks
* 35% said they could do without MySpace
* 43% could live without Twitter
* 12% said Twitter was most valuable
* Under 35, people rely on social networks for “fun” and contacting friends
* Older consumers use them to stay in touch with family and friends
* 75% said Facebook was their most valuable network, 65% who cited MySpace
* 30% said LinkedIn was their most valuable network
What do you think? Has social media jumped the shark?
Not even close! It is still in its infancy. What's coming is so profound and life changing that we cannot even begin to imagine it. Anyone who is "bored" at this stage of the game has lost perspective likely because of all the hype watering down the real value proposition.
I think that social Media is here to stay. although privacy issues as well as over marketing to users could pose a threat to these services, they do make however a very effective marketing tool that should not be ignored by corporations or anyone looking to spinn something.
HI Mark, I tweeted about the math in that Social Media article a few days ago because somehow the "most valuable" stats add up to 182%. Either it's "among their most valuable" or the math is flat out wrong. This led me to discard the whole report on faulty statistics.
Call me a math geek, but when using percentages they should add up to 100. Either that or stipulate how many times people could "vote".
It hasn't jumped the shark as growth will continue but this growth may slow and not all of the current networks will survive. I personally believe that LinkedIn and Facebook have more staying power than Twitter and that Twitter will be less able to monetize itself over the long run. IMHO Twitter is the Fast Food of Social Media – good in small doses but you tire of a study diet of it.
Hi Mark.
My post was part complaint and part suggestion for how to make social more valuable. As you say, the post title was a bit misleading on purpose
My job is to investigate new technologies, implement them and distill what works and what does not in given contexts. So, while I'm increasingly overwhelmed with the noise created by FB and Twitter, I have ideas on how to make social more useful, namely reputation (for users) and analytics (for community managers).
This is a great time to work on what's next, since as you point out, many people are uninitiated or haven't jumped in the pool yet.