Survey on Social Media

Survey: Industry Firms Use Social Networks For Business

A new ASI survey confirms that social networking is gaining popularity as a sales and promotional tool among distributors, suppliers and decorators. Nearly 90% of survey respondents feel social networking already is or will become a good way to publicize their business in the future. In addition, more than half of those surveyed expect to increase the amount of time they spend using social networking sites over the next two years.

While there's no consensus about which networking site will be most relevant in the future within the ad specialty industry, LinkedIn and Facebook clearly hold significant value today. Almost 76% of distributors and 70% of suppliers use LinkedIn for business, while 59% of distributors and 62% of suppliers have Facebook accounts. The vast majority of respondents are aware of Twitter, however only 12% of distributors and 18% of suppliers currently have Twitter accounts. MySpace is commonly known as a social networking site, but only 20% of distributors and 15% of suppliers use MySpace for work purposes. Among respondents, the usage of YouTube is mostly personal, with very small numbers of distributors, suppliers and decorators using the video sharing Web site for business.

The survey also shows that a significant number of respondents who use MySpace (22% among distributors) have inactive accounts. By comparison, there are very few LinkedIn accounts that are inactive. Respondents are also more likely to have separate business and personal accounts for Facebook and Twitter.

A total of 1,364 industry professionals responded to the survey, which took place earlier this summer.