Re: Which social media do millenials use?

Recently I had the privilege to give a guest lecture at the Hogeschool Arnhem & Nijmegen (college-level) about Enterprise 2.0. Just like last year I asked the students which social media tools they use and why. I like asking them this question, because it gives me some insight in adoption rates of tools and usage patterns.

Last years results can be found here. I'll share this year's results below. Of the 24 students I had in my classes:

  • 24 have a Twitter account, 6 actively use it and 2 others only consume tweets.
  • 24 have a Hyves account (Dutch social network, comparable to Facebook), 1 uses it actively and some go there every now-and-then.
  • Facebook is clearly taking over Hyves, with 20 accounts in the classes and they use it actively. 14 only consume Facebook updates.
  • Only 2 have a Foursquare account and use it actively.
  • 6 have a Google+ account and none of them use it.
  • LinkedIn: 16 have an account, 5 use it actively.
  • They all have to blog for these classes. Only 2 already had a blog before classes.
  • Instagram is not used actively at all, just 3 have an account.
  • Pinterest is a bit more popular: 6 have an account and 3 update regularly.
  • MySpace: 2 accounts, no active use, but some said they might go back now that MySpace updated it's look and feel.
Pretty interesting, don't you think?
The Dutch social network is even less popular than last year. Everybody has gone to Facebook. Most say they use Facebook to stay connected with friends. They don't follow brands there, they follow and interact with friends.
I'm surprised by how little Twitter is being used. I asked them why, but they couldn't really tell me. One said it had to do with open vs. closed. Someone else said: more of his friends are on Facebook than Twitter.
Just like last year LinkedIn is not used much. They'll use it when they grow up... ;-)
Pinterest wasn't even there last year, but is getting some traction from these youngsters.
Google+ is not used at all. Most said they don't see the added-value compared to the current toolset (Twitter, Facebook).
Blogging is stable: last year 2 blogged before they had to blog for this class. This year there were 2 as well. Same goes for Foursquare.
Finally, it's interesting to hear from the students some will give MySpace a new go after the UI update. They really pay attention to the way things work and what they look like.


What do you think of these results? What should we be learning from these numbers?

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