Trusting Social Media: 2010 Digital Influence Index Study

Social media use is dominated by Chinese and Canadian users, according to Fleishman-Hillard's 2010 Digital Influence Index Study. According to the study, 69% of Canadians participate in a social networking compared with a global average of 47%. Facebook is the preferred social media platform for Canadians although Twitter and other microblogging sites are also highly popular and well known in Canada, with 85% of Canadians aware of them, followed closely the users in the United States.

Interestingly, the study found wide consensus among those surveyed that people share too much personal information through social media, and that little of the information that is shared is particularly interesting. Just over half of the respondents (53%) felt that too much personal information is shared online, and a third of respondents found what was shared online wasn't very interesting. The number of people concerned with the risks of sharing information online is also rising, perhaps indicative of an increased awareness brought about by a number of high-profile legal and government cases involving major social media service providers in the past few years.

Another key finding of the study reinforces the value of Twitter and other microblogging services. Overall, trust in organization that monitor their online activity is high, with users appearing to view online listening as a sign that organizations are concerned with the needs of users and are interested in their feedback. Of those surveyed, 75% felt that organizations with microblogging accounts were more deserving of trust. This number was notably higher in China, with 94% of respondents from China reporting that they were happy organizations were "listening and responding to my issue." Notably, Americans, British and Canadians were among the least trusting of microblogging organizations (BP, anyone???).

Contrasting the high trust levels associated with microblogging, bloggers associated with paid or sponsored content were generally taken "with a grain of salt" by respondents, with less than one-fifth of respondents trusting posts by bloggers paid by organizations to blog about products. Free samples, alongside paid or sponsored content elicited considerable distrust among users, indicating that online, just as anywhere else, trust is earned but easily lost.

A joint venture between Harris Interactive and Fleishman-Hillard and now in it's second year, the 2010 Digital Influence Index Study is a comprehensive survey of Internet users in China, the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The study examines internet and social media use, media consumption and rates of technology adoption. According to the authors of the report, the selected countries represent 48% of the global online population, and is weighted to reflect online population sizes in each country.