"Social Media Reality Check"

TORONTO - CNW Group and Leger Marketing shared a preview of comprehensive new research into the social media usage, views and habits of Canadian consumers and public relations practitioners. These summary results were announced at the mesh 2009 Web Conference.

The study was unique in its approach of looking at both the consumer and PR practitioner sides of the social media relationship; looking for gaps and overlaps in PR practitioner perception and the consumer-reported reality. More than 1,500 Canadian consumers were surveyed on issues ranging from how often they use online communications tools, to how social media has influenced their purchasing decisions. PR Practitioners were asked how they thought consumer users would respond. In order to ensure the integrity of the research, only those consumers and PR practitioners who engage in social media were invited to participate.

This Canadian Social Media Reality Check illuminates some surprising and challenging assumptions on the state of social media in 2009.

"Our goal was to combine our expertise in the fast-evolving business of online news with Leger's renowned communications and media research capabilities, to shed light into important questions we have all been asking about the use and impact of social media," said Carolyn McGill-Davidson, President and CEO of CNW Group. "We found the results both startling and reassuring in almost equal measure. There is some encouraging validation in here and a number of remarkable insights into the real state of social media in Canada."

An overview of Social Media Reality Check key findings:

Social media is growing

49% of consumer social media users and 62% of practitioners use social media at least once a day, consumer use grew by 48% year-over-year.

Social media is influencing purchase decision making

61% of consumer social media users turn to social media when researching purchases.

Social media is credible

31% of consumer social media users and 55% of practitioners agree that social media is more credible than advertising. This was one of several interesting points of divergence between the views of users and PR professionals - a gap that will be explored in more detail when the full results are released.

Social media for news and information is important

63% of consumer social media users use social media to keep up-to-date on news and information; 40% are using it to engage with organizations in a dialogue.

Social media users are still loyal to the more popular tools

Facebook is the most popular social media space for consumer social media users (77%) followed by YouTube (65%) and MySpace (20%).

Social media has broadened its demographic

42% of consumer social media users 45 years and older are likely to use online channels to research products, significantly more than younger users.

Social media has untapped opportunities for PR practitioners

69% of PR practitioners feel they understand social media but could be using it more effectively; 70% of PR practitioners do not have a tool to monitor social media and only 29% know who their organization's key online influencers are.

"Leger Marketing is thrilled to have partnered with CNW Group on this research," said Dave Scholz, Vice-President and General Manager of Leger's Toronto office. "It's rare to have an opportunity to look at two sides of the communications or transactional relationship," added Scholz. "It allows us to go beyond the 'how much' or how good' and get into the 'with what effect'. The study paints an encouraging picture: social media use is high and rising, it's credible, it's influencing purchase decisions. Great news for practitioners who say they see the value in social media, despite the fact that most aren't yet working with objectives, monitoring or measurement."

The Social Media Reality Check Study was completed as a partnership project, as opposed to paid research. Full findings from the study will be published as part of a joint webinar to be hosted by CNW Group and Leger Marketing on April 29, 2009. For more details and to register for either the webinar or to receive a full copy of the survey findings, please visit: www.newswire.ca/socialmediarealitycheck.

To join the ongoing conversation on the Social Media Reality Check prior to full release of the results, see the related post on the mesh conference blog - http://www.meshconference.com/blog/.

This survey was conducted among 1,516 users of social media and 615 practitioners. With a sample of this size, results of the user study can be considered accurate to within +/-2.5% and results of the practitioners can be considered accurate to within +/-4.0 %, 19 times out of 20.