Fresh Ideas, Content Creation on Social Media Sites Down
Social networking sites such as Facebook may be boasting millions of active users, but according to a new study, content creation on these platforms is down.
It's no secret that social networking is growing . In fact, Forrester Research found that it's one of the biggest trends seen worldwide. To be specific, the number of people who joined social networks in the last year jumped up by 11 percent in Europe, 18 percent in metro China and 11 percent in Australia. Meanwhile, North America saw slightly less growth, with only an 8 percent increase.
However, no markets exhibited growth in the number of people who create social content except for Japan.
"A lack of growth in social creation translates into a lack of fresh ideas, content and perspectives," said Forrester Research consumer insights analyst Jacqueline Anderson. "For example, one-third of online consumers in the United States regularly watch user-generated videos on sites like YouTube. But only 10 percent of online consumers in the United States upload videos they’ve created to public sites."
"The traits required to create social content are unique, and at this moment, the consumer market interested in these behaviors has plateaued," she added.
The creator audience over the past year not only dropped in the United States (24 percent to 23 percent), it also dropped from 15 percent to 14 percent in the European Union, 44 percent to 41 percent in metropolitan China and 23 percent to 22 percent in Australia.
However, Japan was the only country that showed creation growth, up two percentage points from 34 percent to 36 percent, the report said.
