Digital PR, marketing and social media communications agency Prompt Communications, which has offices in the US and the UK, last week released the results of a survey it conducted regarding the use of social media and modern communication trends.
The survey was only organized in the US but delivers some interesting insights in how people these days communicate.
It will not come as a surprise that digital communication channels become increasingly important, with social media leading the pack.
However, according to the survey the most common method of communication with family and friends is still the telephone. We guess that includes the mobile phone too. 99% of the respondents regularly the phone to keep in touch with family and friends.
And then comes a staggering finding.
We all know that social media are hot but, still, the number is impressive: with 96% (!) Facebook is the next most popular communication tool, according to the survey.
The social network is followed by SMS with 93% and email with 91%. Although SMS ranks third, in a way it comes first too: SMS is used most frequently (37% of respondents). Regarding frequency of usage Facebook and the phone share the second spot with 28% of respondents.
Social media are more important than email?
A word about email now. Previous studies have shown that the use of social media has an impact on email as a communication tool.
According to the survey ‘respondents clearly feel that email is now less important than social media’. Furthermore, 20% said they could live without email entirely.
That means that 80% still wants email and the question that arises when we read this is: what are the demographic data on those that could entirely live without?
Remember that the survey is about staying connected with friends and family, not about communication between people and businesses.
Although the respondents embrace social media to say connected with friends and family, they at the same time feel that all these technological advances – not only social media – ‘have created a negative effect on their lives and interpersonal communications in several ways’.
According to the survey, the majority (60%) believes that it relies too much on technology, while 71% believe social media is making communication less personal.
However, these reservations do not seem to matter too much if we read that a staggering 28% of respondents claimed that they could only go one week without using social media, with a further 24% worried about just a few days.
Join me in the Social Marketing Forum
I use http://spokt.com to keep in touch with my family. Facebook is a mess and not private enough for me.
Really? Facebook more popular than email to connect with friends? I never thought email will even be this obsolete…