User-Generated Content is the Core of Social Media

02/16/2009

It seems like everyone on the Internet nowadays takes part in user generated content to some extent, whether it’s creating a MySpace profile or uploading videos onto YouTube for example. Even so, there are more consumers of user-generated content than there are creators. This is true of pretty much any form of media since there are usually more spectators than there are those who participate. The distance between the number of creators compared with the number of participators is at least smaller in the case of social media. This is due to the fact that it is so much easier and affordable to produce content for Web sites than it is for traditional media.

Let’s take a look at the type of user-generated social media content that drew the most attention in 2008. Currently, blogs had the highest amount of viewership with a total of 54 percent of Internet users viewing the content according to eMarketer. Social network users made up a total of 41.2 percent of US citizens and 36 percent of this group are user-generated video watchers. The number of US Internet users who viewed wiki content was 34 percent.

As you can see, there is already a large portion of the populace that views and/or creates social media content. It has been predicted by eMarketer however, that by 2013 each of these four categories will grow. There will be an estimated 152.6 million blog viewers, 114.6 million social network users, 108.8 user-generated video viewers, and 97.1 million wiki viewers.

eMarketer’s predictions concerning this increase of user-generated social media content are based on numerous factors. The following are a few examples of the information provided by this study which helped the company reach this conclusion.

• There will be fewer technical barriers in the near future which will allow more users to create and upload their own videos. While this has always been easy, this is why it took off so quickly, there was still some level of experience needed.
• Blogs and user-generated videos will become a more comfortable medium for people as they solidify their place in the mainstream. To date they are still seen as something created and used by only a small segment of the population.
• Photo sharing sites will continue to grow in popularity. These sites which are primarily used by teenagers at the moment, allow anyone to post and share photos. They have shown a rapid rise lately.
• The huge percentage of younger users which social media receives is also a reason to predict that it will continue to grow. The younger population is also considered to be the early adopters of new technologies that become popular.
• The options for user-generated content continue to grow, with micro-blogs and user-generated social networks being the latest trends.
• As the medium continues to grow, companies have begun the crowd sourcing of content.

As you can see, user-generated content continues to grow in popularity and in consumption. As long as more people find out about it and it becomes easier to produce, we can count on its continued growth

For more insight visit Internet Marketing Services