Universal McCann present Wave 5 – the Socialisation of Brands

Universal McCann have just released the fifth installment of their global social media survey: Wave 5 – The Socialisation Of Brands. It is further evidence that social media continues to have a huge impact on brands. This time UM surveyed 37,600 active internet users (that go online every day or every other day) in 54 countries.

Decline for company/brand web pages
Among all the graphs I found the one below to be one of the most interesting. It shows how many of the respondents that visited an official brand or company website during the last 6 months and the percentage is declining quite rapidly. From 85% to 75% in the last two years. It is clear that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get consumers to visit your company website and that brands (also) need to reach out to consumers on social media platforms.

wave 5 fig 20

The percentage of internet users who follow or become fans of brands on social networks has increased from about 10% last year to about 30% in 2010.

wave 5 fig 21

Another interesting conclusion from the Wave 5 survey is that face to face meetings is becoming the least used means of staying in contact with friends. Text messages is still used more seldom but is growing in importance.

wave 5 fig 8

The entire report can be found below.

Social Media Wave 5 – OCT2010 (Universal McCann)