Two Thirds of Americans believe society uncivil

Jun 25, 2010 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: News

66 percent of all Americans believe there to be a general lack of civility. Moreover, 72 percent think that bad behavior has gotten worse in recent years. 75 percent of those surveyed think that the financial crisis and recession have lessened the level of American civility.

One thing is clear, most Americans believe that their friends and family are not uncivil, but the majority of the public views those outside this circle as being uncivil. Particularly hard hit in the survey were politics, high schools, talk radio, motorways, and Hollywood and professional sports.

72 percent of Americans think the government has got it all wrong. This overall opinion has appears to be having an impact on participation and interest in the political process. Nearly half of all Americans are simply no longer interested in politics, with 63 percent indicating that the general tone and level of civility (or lack thereof) as a major factor in their decision to tune out. 46 percent are no longer interested in opinion and editorials in the media, 45 percent citing incivility as the driving force.

When it comes down to the naming of names, 71 percent of Democrats surveyed said that they thought Republicans were uncivil. 74 percent of all Republicans viewed Democrats as uncivil. Political independents view Republicans more uncivil than Democrats, although independents think that both parties are more uncivil than civil (58 and 50 percent, respectively).

“Our research provides hard evidence that constituents and consumers alike are fed up with the polarization of our political system and the uncivil tone of our country as a whole,” said Jack Leslie, Chairman of Weber Shandwick. “As a result, Americans are tuning out and turning away from news, information and informed opinions that make up the very foundation of American democracy.”

Outside the political world, Americans are still hopping mad about the general incivility of the nation. Three quarters of Americans believe that companies that exhibit uncivil behavior should be boycotted. 56 percent of Americans have refrained from purchasing one company or another’s products based on their own perceived levels on corporate incivility. 55 percent have reevaluated their opinions of said company, while 49 percent indicated that they’ve advised friends and family against purchasing a company’s product.

And while the majority of Americans view their nation to be uncivil and are quick to point fingers in every direction, they still believe that there is hope to turn the tide. When asked who is responsible for improving civility, 87 percent answered “The American public.” 83 percent said political leaders, and 81, 79, and 76 percent indicated news media, businesses and places of worship.

The online survey was conducted by KRC Research and polled more than 1,000 Americans on how civility affect’s individual views of and participation in social media, politics, and buying behaviors. The executive summary of this survey is available here.

I have but one quote to offer to this news: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi

More Americans trust Tech and Social Media over Traditional Media

Jun 25, 2010 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

In a recent poll conducted by Zogby International Americans were asked to rate the news sources that they trusted most. At the very bottom of the list? Traditional Media.

Traditional Media scored lower than social media including Facebook and Twitter. Almost half of the 2,100 adults surveyed indicated that they trusted big tech firms such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft, 13 percent said they trust Facebook. Twitter scored an 8 percent on the trust scale, tying it with the same trust level American adults place in traditional media. Of the young adults surveyed (18-29), only 6 percent indicated that traditional media was their choice for trust.

John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International said that companies like Facebook and Twitter have not had the time to build a brand identity. I might argue that point. However, Google and Apple garner more of Americans’ trust as they’ve been around longer and have had the opportunity to build a brand and position themselves in the market.

Looking further into the Zogby survey with find that young adults have higher levels of trust in Facebook and Twitter with 20 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

When asked in a telephone interview with Reuters, Zogby commented that online privacy was tantamount to users, “I think to a great degree, its all about privacy.” And therein lies the irony. As more and more Americans begin to put more trust in Tech than Traditional Media, does the average consumer really know just what/where/and by whom their personal data is being displayed/read by?

Google has taken some heat as of late due to their Street View cars that collected private information on unencrypted WiFi networks while snapping pics for the online mapping software. WEP wha?

Likewise, young adult number one pick Facebook has recently changed their privacy policy do to a backlash from users and privacy watchdog groups when the Palo Alto firm decided to start releasing users’ data to ‘selected’ partners to ‘enrich’ the end users’ viewing (read:shopping) experience.

Social Media Statistics

Feb 2, 2010 by Dan Taylor    9 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

Opinions abound on Social Media. How it works, where it works best, how individuals and businesses can use it best, etc. Each of these opinions have their own intrinsic value, but sometimes, nothing beats cold hard numbers. As Joe Friday said, “All we want are the facts, ma’am,”- let’s take a look at some Social Media statistics.

• Facebook receives and shares more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (links, news stories, blog posts) on a weekly basis.
• Facebook pages have generated more than 5.3 billion fans.
• Approximately 700,000 local businesses have active Facebook fan pages.
• Approximately 70 percent of Facebook users arrive from outside the United States.
• Over 250 Facebook applications have over 1 million combined users each month.
• Since December 2008, more than 80,000 websites have integrated Facebook Connect. More than 60 million Facebook users actively use this service across any number of these 80,000+ sites that offer the feature.
• 55-65 year old females make up the fastest growing segment on Facebook
• Facebook paid $0 to have their entire site translated into Spanish via a crowdsourced Wiki. The site was translated in less than 4 weeks.

• LinkedIn has approximately 11 million active users in Europe.
• The largest growing geographic region for LinkedIn is India, with over 3 million total users.

• At the close of 2009, the average tweets per day was over 27.3 million, making the average tweets per hour 1.14 million.
• If the current tweet per time ratio were to remain constant, this would generate over 10 billion tweets per year.
• 80 percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices.

• 70 percent of bloggers engage in corporate brand discussions.
• 54 percent of bloggers post content or tweet daily.
• 38 percent of bloggers regularly post brand or product reviews.

• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 web activity.
• 12.5 percent of all couples married in the US last year met via social media.
• comScore data points to Russia as having the most engaged social media audience with participants spending 6.6 hours view 1,307 pages per month. The leading social networking site in Russia is NOT Facebook, but vKontakte.ru.
• YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine.

One-quarter of all search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands point to user-generated content.

Obviously, these are some serious numbers for serious business. Corporations spend millions of dollars in advertising annually, but yet, 25 percent of all search results on these corporations yield user generated content. Social Media is everywhere, making Brand image and the associated conversations surrounding this image vital to today’s business.   What does this say about the way YOU are advertising and managing YOUR online image?

If you’d like to learn more about how and what a Social Media Campaign can do for your company, please get in touch!