Search & Social Media Survey Report

Greenlight, a digital marketing agency based in London, has created some buzz with its Search & Social Media Survey 2011/2012.  You can read the report from the survey at the link below.

From the Foreword:

Our annual Search & Social Media Survey 2011/2012, is based on questions we posed to 500 people from all over the world – students, law enforcement professionals, medical staff, accountants, lawyers, the unemployed, and everyone in between. We wanted to hear directly from them about how they engage with online advertising, search engines, and social networks, in the hope that we could gain some insight into how people engage with us as marketers today, and also help us formulate some views on what the future might hold.

For instance, our research found that, of 500 respondents, 5% would ‘definitely’ use a future Facebook search engine if the firm were to launch one to rival Google’s . The other extreme, those categorically saying that they simply would not use a future Facebook search engine, totalled 26% of all respondents. Those responding in the ‘definitely’ and ‘probably’ camps totalled 17%. Those responding ‘no’ and ‘probably not’, totalled 48%.

These stats therefore suggest that Facebook could capture around 22% of the global search market by simply launching its own search engine tomorrow morning (the ‘definitely’, ‘probably’, and half of the ‘don’t know’ respondents combined). It wouldn’t need to be a spectacular engine either, just well integrated into the Facebook experience and generally competent. This 22% market share would make Facebook the second most utilised search engine in every major market except for China, Japan, and Russia, where it would occupy an uncontested third place.

 Direct link to document (PDF; 2.5 MB)