Social Media Usage in Ireland

Roro4Brit

Hi,

I need some help if anyone will oblige. I was wondering if anybody knows where I can find reliable stats on social media usage but from a purely irish perspective? I've found some UK data but ideally I need Irish figures.

I have looked long and hard but nothing seems to be available online for Ireland. The key websites I'm looking for are Facebook, Bebo, YouTube Flickr and Twitter!

Any help is appreciated and if you've any info at all please share even if you think its only small!

Thanks

m@cc@

Don't know if this is of any use to you but it measure the number of hits for a website and gives a breakdown of the countries using it along with the website rank for that country.

http://www.alexa.com/

GoldenGoosey

Roro4Brit I'm currently looking for the same info for my thesis, could you inform me on how you eventually obtained yours?

blue4ever

There are currently 2,143,800 Facebook users in the Ireland, it added nearly 60,000 in the last six months.

batistuta9

and of course a facebook user can be a pub, club, sports team, shop or any other inanimate object

IRE60

yea- but behind that inanimate object is........

Mrs OBumble

IRE60 wrote: »

yea- but behind that inanimate object is........

A semi-inanimate object (publican, inept PR "consultant", etc) who is not bright enough to read Facebook's rules and understand that they should have set up a Page instead.

batistuta9

JustMary wrote: »

A semi-inanimate object (publican, inept PR "consultant", etc) who is not bright enough to read Facebook's rules and understand that they should have set up a Page instead.

a profile is nearly a better option for some businesses, pubs, in small towns etc. they offer more control & privacy

IRE60

JustMary wrote: »

A semi-inanimate object (publican, inept PR "consultant", etc) who is not bright enough to read Facebook's rules and understand that they should have set up a Page instead.

hell hath no fury like.....?

28064212

batistuta9 wrote: »

a profile is nearly a better option for some businesses, pubs, in small towns etc. they offer more control & privacy

Except for the fact that they can be shut down and deleted at any time, with absolutely no recourse.

And the "control & privacy" they offer is at the expense of real users. A business (small or not) should not be able to see who I'm friends with, or what other pages I'm liking

batistuta9

28064212 wrote: »

Except for the fact that they can be shut down and deleted at any time, with absolutely no recourse.

And the "control & privacy" they offer is at the expense of real users. A business (small or not) should not be able to see who I'm friends with, or what other pages I'm liking

wouldn't take long to setup another though

the control & privacy isn't at the expense of 'real' users at all, don't accept the friend request then from the business if you're that worried

also if the users liking pages instead of the profiles businesses have, if their setting are set to public or anything they've set public can be seen, so that can also make that point redundant.

maybe you misunderstood who i was saying they offered more privacy & control to, it was the people setting up these business profiles, so they could choose who to 'friend' etc.
as likely they'll only want people in their location, probably know the majority of them anyway etc.

28064212

batistuta9 wrote: »

wouldn't take long to setup another though

How long would it take to rebuild your user-list from scratch?

batistuta9 wrote: »

the control & privacy isn't at the expense of 'real' users at all, don't accept the friend request then from the business if you're that worried

If I want to accept information from a business by hitting the like button, I'm not sharing anything with them that I haven't explicitly shared with them. If I accept a friend request, they can straight away see a whole host of information that is well beyond what they need

batistuta9 wrote: »

also if the users liking pages instead of the profiles businesses have, if their setting are set to public or anything they've set public can be seen, so that can also make that point redundant.

Obviously businesses can see public information. But they can see that public information regardless of whether they're "liked", "friended" or anything else. We're talking about private information, so the point is not redundant at all.

batistuta9 wrote: »

maybe you misunderstood who i was saying they offered more privacy & control to, it was the people setting up these business profiles, so they could choose who to 'friend' etc.
as likely they'll only want people in their location, probably know the majority of them anyway etc.

No, I understood exactly who the privacy and control is offered to. My point was that it is at the expense of users' privacy and control.

growmyfans

Roro4Brit wrote: »

Hi,

I need some help if anyone will oblige. I was wondering if anybody knows where I can find reliable stats on social media usage but from a purely irish perspective? I've found some UK data but ideally I need Irish figures.

I have looked long and hard but nothing seems to be available online for Ireland. The key websites I'm looking for are Facebook, Bebo, YouTube Flickr and Twitter!

Any help is appreciated and if you've any info at all please share even if you think its only small!

Thanks

Hi there check out State of The Net...its an excellent resource for recent eCommerce/social media/digital advertising/trends etc....fantastic resource for individuals conducting market research or looking to start an eCommerce site...heres the link...you wont be disappointed.

http://www.iia.ie/resources/resource/1/state-of-the-net/

TsuDhoNimh

batistuta9 wrote: »

wouldn't take long to setup another though

I think this says it all.

If you don't see the value in having a long term and sustainable social media profile and are happy to accept the high risks of having it shut down at any moment (I keep hearing how uncommon it is, yet have seen it happen in a large number of cases as soon as a competitor takes action) by knowingly doing it in the wrong way, I don't believe there's anything I or the other responsible or informed posters on the thread will be able to say to make someone feel otherwise.

If you're a responsible business looking to do social marketing in the right way, or simply looking to get the best returns from a social platform, you'd never consider a risk of losing your activity as a viable option.

If you're in it for a 'quick win' and willing to accept that type of loss, well... you're doing it wrong to begin with and looking at it with an extremely short sited view and likely to be operating in a non sustainable manner (using it as a marketing/broadcast tool rather than for social engagement) to begin with.

RainyDay

batistuta9 wrote: »

maybe you misunderstood who i was saying they offered more privacy & control to, it was the people setting up these business profiles, so they could choose who to 'friend' etc.
as likely they'll only want people in their location, probably know the majority of them anyway etc.

Why would you want to limit access for a business to people you already know? It kind-of defeats the purpose.

batistuta9

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

I think this says it all.

If you don't see the value in having a long term and sustainable social media profile and are happy to accept the high risks of having it shut down at any moment (I keep hearing how uncommon it is, yet have seen it happen in a large number of cases as soon as a competitor takes action) by knowingly doing it in the wrong way, I don't believe there's anything I or the other responsible or informed posters on the thread will be able to say to make someone feel otherwise.

If you're a responsible business looking to do social marketing in the right way, or simply looking to get the best returns from a social platform, you'd never consider a risk of losing your activity as a viable option.

If you're in it for a 'quick win' and willing to accept that type of loss, well... you're doing it wrong to begin with and looking at it with an extremely short sited view and likely to be operating in a non sustainable manner (using it as a marketing/broadcast tool rather than for social engagement) to begin with.

RainyDay wrote: »

Why would you want to limit access for a business to people you already know? It kind-of defeats the purpose.

they're fine for business/nightclubs etc. or whatever in large enough towns or the city but for ****ty little business in ****ty little rural towns i think a normal page is just going to be as good - & in particularly pubs because your locals and regulars are, well you know local so they'll know of promotions (if any) or music, etc.

that was the point & you all seem to miss it or maybe you still disagree with it, but you should realise these aren't the kind of business that are going to be looking into making an impact with social marketing in the first place. they've just got a page because everyone & their dog seems to have one now

RainyDay

batistuta9 wrote: »

that was the point & you all seem to miss it or maybe you still disagree with it, but you should realise these aren't the kind of business that are going to be looking into making an impact with social marketing in the first place. they've just got a page because everyone & their dog seems to have one now

They're definitely not going to make an impact if they choose a strategy that explicitly limits their audience to people they already know.

TsuDhoNimh

batistuta9 wrote: »

that was the point & you all seem to miss it or maybe you still disagree with it..

If you're travelling down a one way street and everyone else is going in the wrong direction, it's a good idea to question the direction you're going.

batistuta9 wrote: »

they're fine for business/nightclubs etc. or whatever in large enough towns or the city but for ****ty little business in ****ty little rural towns i think a normal page is just going to be as good

How 'good' a page or a profile will be isn't down to the location or even the industry a business operates in, it's down to how it's used.

Any strategy that employs breaking the terms and conditions of the platform being used, and risks having the time and effort invested lost at the flick of a switch, could never be 'as good'. It's simply not sustainable and is putting the investment (and brand and reputation) at risk. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.

batistuta9 wrote: »

but you should realise these aren't the kind of business that are going to be looking into making an impact with social marketing in the first place. they've just got a page because everyone & their dog seems to have one now

Having a page for the sake of having a page is a mistake. No question.

Having a profile for the sake of having a page but believing they'll get better results, or that it'll require less effort, is a bigger mistake. No question.

As for them not looking to make an impact via social marketing, that seems at odds with every single business I've ever spoken to. They all want to make an impact on their bottom line via every possible stream open to them.

Whether they have the knowledge to do it, the resources to do it or have even considered what they're hoping to do on a specific platform is a different story, but they do want it to make an impact (even if they're mistaken enough to believe that'll happen magically without the work required to make it happen).

As for it only being suitable for large businesses in large geographic areas, that's absolutely not the case. For a 'local' business the way that the average demographics of Facebook networks work means that they will be hitting an extremely targeted group with each and every interaction that a 'local' makes on the page. People will always have a number of local friends from the area they lived/live/grew up. For this reason alone (forgetting about the T&C breaches completely), it's worth them moving to a page so they continually monitor and optimise the interactions they generate on their page. Every business is unique and every target customer is unique, so the only way to ensure your marketing is being done right for you is to closely monitor the results of what you try (and this is one of the great advantages of digital marketing).

When you're dealing with a relatively small local market, being able to get that reach to such a large number of them with nothing more than a little time and some creative thinking is a fantastic opportunity. Compare that to the cost of advertising via national or even large reach local traditional media and the 'value for money' will be unquestionable (again, assuming it's being done right).