Social Media Report 2014 – Press Release
In SA Student social media report 2014Students compare their relationship with social media to a relationship with a lover!
96% of South African students admitted to using some form of social media with the average student spending 1008 hours per year on said social media on their mobile phones, 61% said they spend more time interacting with social media than watching tv. “Engaging with SA students is definitely a challenge for brands and marketers – especially when it comes to social media. In the discussion around advertising on social media, students revealed that they were more receptive to brands that are promoted by their friends, rather than direct communication from the brand itself.” Says Ronen Aires, CEO at Student Village The report covered a sample of 4227 students looking at a strong demographic representation of South Africa – the sample was aged between the ages of 18 – 24 from tertiary institutions and the research was conducted nationally through focus groups, an online survey and field research. Within this study, clear differences amongst females and males emerged. Female students hold a closer, more intense and ultimately intimate relationship with social media. For many social media was viewed as “the lover”. Most students admitted to sneaking around with “it” and it was often viewed as the 3rd person in a relationship offering cheap thrills and a form of preoccupation. The majority of students get their dose of loving first thing in the morning and last thing at night, with 50% admitting to engaging in social media most often in the bedroom. As in any relationship, there are moments of love and passion as well as moments of hate, fear and disengagement. Students’ relationship with social media is no different. In a society where how you are perceived is as important as who you are (if not more so), students admitted to creating alter ego’s vs. depicting their real self on social media. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, were seen to facilitate this need to shade the truth and create a different and more desirable reality. A reality, where life was more fun, more adventurous and more exciting. Consequently, one’s ability to obtain likes, retweets and comments were viewed as an achievement and somewhat addictive. Students ultimately thrived on obtaining affirmation and acceptance. Simply put it made many feel good…even if only for a while. The top three social media apps used by SA students are WhatsApp, due its convenience, low cost (as it only uses data) and the fact that the App is available across all platforms and devices. Second came Facebook (seen by most as the guardian of social media) where students said they like the timeline feature because of its diary-like documentation of their lives. Coming in third is BBM due the large number of BlackBerry handsets out in the market as well as its availability across platforms. “When looking deeper into how students behave with advertising on social media and subsequent action, what we discovered is that there is a clear split amongst SA students whom are either reached or missed completely. Just over half of students find social media advertising annoying, whereas the rest are quite open to it. 51% of students claim to ignore adverts, 32% admit to clicking through and visiting the site, 27% said they would ‘like’ the ad and 11% would likely share the advert.” How does a brand or marketer effectively reach this market on social media successfully? “Brands need to really give careful consideration to what their strategy is in reaching this market. Through our research, we discovered that brands that do one or more of the following really resonate with SA students; touching heartstrings (think the latest Always campaign #likeagirl), breaking conventional rules (Like Nandos smart and controversial media presence), and seeking to become a topic and a hashtag (Coca Colas ‘Share a Coke’ campaign).” Concludes Aires
About Student Village:
Student Village is the leading provider of youth marketing solutions on South African campuses and the most credible source of information on what’s hot and what’s not in the 18 to 25 target market. It is also the go-to source for all information linked to graduate recruitment and career development. www.studentvillage.co.za is the largest student social networking portal in Africa, and www.gradx.net is a leading source of information on graduate recruitment and career development. For more information go to studentmarketing.co.za For any media related queries, contact Kim Goldreich on