How Family Members Use Facebook To Communicate

Facebook recently released a robust report about how families are using Facebook pages to communicate with one another. The study, drawn from hundreds of thousands of “anonymized” posts where people identified themselves as parents and children, provides a fascinating peek into who in a family initiates the Facebook friendship, who is the most responsive, topics discussed, etc.

Reach Out and Friend Someone

So, who extends the friend request—parent or child?  As with so many other social media studies, this one showed differences by age group:

• By and large, adolescents ages 13-17 took the lead in starting Facebook friendships with their parents. More than 65 percent of the friendships between 13 year olds and their moms and/or dads were initiated by the child.
• This percentage begins to drop as the child ages, with only four in 10 of sons and daughters in their mid-twenties sending friend requests to parents.
• Then, the trend swings upwards once more as children reach their thirties and forties, with nearly half of adult children in their mid-forties getting the Facebook ball rolling with their folks.

Hello Mother, Hello Father

Facebook analysts also took a look at which family member was mostly likely to start a virtual dialogue.

Consumers Find Social Media Increasingly Trustworthy

Where do you turn when you need a trustworthy source for information regarding financial matters?

Surely, publications like Barrons, The Wall Street Journal and Money all top your list. Maybe you also include Bloomberg, CNNMoney and CNBC, too.

But, would you ever consider looking for financial updates on your favorite social media platform?

Apparently, more and more consumers are doing just that, as they grow increasingly trusting of information they find on Twitter, Facebook and etc.

In a recent study from ING,  1,500 Dutch consumers were questioned regarding what impact, if any, social media has on their financial decisions.  Although the social media channel has certainly not replaced more traditional sources, the results revealed that consumers increasingly view their social networks as reputable sources of data, facts and current events.

Here’s how information gleaned from social media updates fared when compared with what people read on more established websites:

Study Identifies Serious Gap Between Executives’ Knowledge About Social Media And Its Use At Their Companies

The C-suite still can’t seem to get its arms around social media marketing.

When it comes to incorporating key social network platforms into marketing, branding, customer service or outreach efforts, senior leaders say they realize consequences of lagging behind, and yet research conducted by Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance and its Center for Leadership Development and Research clearly indicates otherwise.

Sure, 90 percent of the nearly 200 CEOs and other senior executives surveyed acknowledged the relevance of integrating social media into their overall business plans of action. But, a look at their actual business practices in this arena were far from convincing.  Most notably: 

Study: Millennials Are Tethered To Mobile Devices

As I’ve said before, consumers crave mobile. Everywhere you turn these days, you can see  people consulting their mobile devices while shopping, eating, walking, waiting . . . even while sitting side-by- side with friends, each on his or her own phone.  Is this devotion—obsession?—to smartphones and tablets simply a harmless sign of the times, or could it have larger, perhaps even unhealthy, social and cultural implications?

Earlier this year, Salzburg Global Seminar tracked the mobile activity of college students over a 24-hour period.  Interestingly, this research revealed that many in this age group appeared to be actually tethered to their phones, literally unable in many cases to put them down.

Moreover, this attachment to mobile devices by those in their late teens and early twenties is not confined to a particular country or even hemisphere.  Researchers found that the behaviors were universal; the study included more than 800 students from eight universities on three different continents and representing 52 nationalities.

Other key findings included: 

Businesses Becoming More “Socially Devoted” To Customers

Finally! Here’s some good news about how companies are using social media to engage with consumers online.

Despite several previous studies showing that consumers increasingly expect the companies they do business with to respond to them via online channels, most companies have been slow to implement effective social media initiatives.

This new research, however, identifies encouraging signs of improved customer attentiveness across today’s  most popular social media networks.

Referring to this increased attentiveness on Facebook, Twitter, et al. as being “socially devoted,” the social media marketing company Socialbakers said the results of its recent survey revealed significant improvement by many kinds of businesses when it comes to providing online real-time customer service.

Just how much social devotion are companies dishing out?