#8 - Social Media

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, social networking sites have grown in popularity with 37% of users accessing these sites in 2009, up from 26% in 2008. The average age of social networkers was 35 years, and those who didn't use social networking site had an average age of 53 years. As can be seen by the graph below, the main modes of on-line communication consist of email, social networking sites and news feeds taking the top 3 spots. Bringing up the rear include; news feeds, instant messaging, blogs, internet phone calls and wikis.

Social networking with regard to smartphone use, shows that 61% of total smartphone use is for social networking by males, and 65% by females. The two graphs below are of great interest when comparing with each other. They show the marked difference in how and what males and females use their smartphones for.

 http://blog.marginmedia.com.au/Our-Blog/bid/81865/Smartphone-Use-in-Australia-The-Advantage-for-Marketers