Twitter, Facebook Serve Different Purposes in Canada
Huge variation in usage of 'social graph' vs. 'interest graph' networks
It's conventional wisdom that Facebook and Twitter have different reasons for being—and obvious based on the differences in popularity and content on the services that people treat them differently. But research from Canada conducted by Abacus Data and Full Duplex indicates just how stark the divide is in user perceptions of why they use the social networks.
On Twitter, users in Canada were most likely to say they shared content in order to endorse it, at 79% of respondents. That number dwarfed any reason to share via Facebook. Voicing your opinion (58%) and spreading important news (53%) rounded out the top three reasons behind Twitter sharing.
On Facebook, spreading important news and voicing your opinion about it were the top two reasons to share, though somewhat less compelling than they were on Twitter. The No. 3 reason to share via facebook, providing followers with content that might interest them, garned 47% of respondents—close to the 46% who did this via Twitter.
But relatively few people on Facebook were interested in posting content to endorse it—fewer than a third did so. Meanwhile, 41% posted to Facebook just to add content to their feed, while a mere 5% of Twitter users did the same.
eMarketer estimates that 18.5 million people in Canada use a social networking site at least once per month this year.
- See more at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Twitter-Facebook-Serve-Different-Purposes-Canada/1011542/3#sthash.EYILCIyp.dpuf
