It seems that a surprising number of people couldn’t care less about Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks with hundreds of millions of users. Namely because, according to new statistics from Synovate, a whole lot of people are completely unfamiliar with social networking.
Synovate looked at 17 markets around the world and found that 58 percent of its 13,000 respondents claimed not to recognize the term. This isn’t an “old person” issue, since 65 was the upper age limit. Neither was it limited to countries other than the U.S., as 30 percent of Americans didn’t have a clue.
Social media champions could interpret the data as a good thing at this point – there’s room for all sorts of room for growth to take place. Unfortunately, the stats don’t end there.
Synovate reports, “When asked if they agree with the statement ‘I am losing interest in online social networking’, 36% of the social networking site members were in the affirmative; led by Japan (55%), Slovakia (48%), Canada (47%), Poland and the US (45%).”
Adam Ostrow introduces some valid questions about the phrasing of Synovate’s questions and the importance of very young markets (18 was the lower age limit on Synovate’s survey). Still, it looks like we’re not yet at a point where marketers and investors will want to bet their farms on Facebook and other social networks.
