Study: 51% Of Americans Have Social Media Profile

The Social Habit is a new study conducted by Edison Research and Arbitron, and is derived from the 19th Edison/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Research Series, one of the longest-running studies of consumer adoption of the Internet, new media and other technologies in existence.

The study was originally presented by Edison Vice President of Strategy Tom Webster at Blogworld in New York on May 25, 2011, and presented new, unreleased data for 2011 on America's adoption of social networking sites and services, with a detailed look at Facebook and Twitter usage, mobile social behavior, and location-based apps and services.

The Social Habit 2011 by Edison Research

View more presentations from webby2001

According to a posting by Tom Webster at Edison Research, highlights of the study include:

• Social Media now reaches the majority of Americans 12+, with 52% having a profile on one or more social networks.
• This figure is driven largely by Facebook, which is now used by over half (51%) of Americans 12+.
• Twitter is as familiar to Americans as Facebook (with 92% and 93% familiarity, respectively); however, Twitter usage stands at 8% of Americans 12+.
• Approximately 46 million Americans 12+ now check their social media sites and services several times every day.Much of this frequent usage is driven by mobile access.
• 56% of frequent social network users own smartphones, and 64% of frequent social networkers have used a mobile phone to update their status on one or more social networks.