Social Networking Sites and Political Activsm

The report on the use of social media for political engagement by the Pew Internet & American Life Project evaluated the political interaction-activities Twitter and social networking site users performed during the 2010 elections:

• 9% of Twitter users, as opposed to 13% of social network users, used Twitter to post political content.
• 16% of Twitter users used Twitter to acquire candidate or campaign information. 14% of social networking site users, on the other hand, used them for this same function.
• 11% of social networking site users and Twitter users used their respective social web-utilities to follow or friend a candidate.

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European Countries Showing Greatest Facebook Growth

Although Facebook is not currently the leading social network in the Netherlands, it experienced significant growth in 2010 in that country and in several other European markets.

In addition to the Netherlands, Facebook achieved its most significant gains in Portugal (up 48.2 percentage points), Germany (up 35.7 points), Austria (up 27.2 points) and Spain (up 18.5 points). 

In April 2010, Facebook eclipsed the leading social networks in Portugal (Hi5) and Germany (StudiVZ/VZ-Netzwerke) to assume the #1 position among social networking sites in both those markets. The previous year, Facebook grabbed the #1 position in Spain (from Tuenti.com) and in Austria (from Netlog.com).

source : Comscore Research

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