NEW YORK, March 6, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- News2u Inc. conducted a study about the differences between university students in Japan and the United States in their use of social media.
For details, see this link.
Q1. On which social media sites do you have accounts? (multiple answers allowed)
In the rankings for the social media most used by university students in the United States, Facebook was an overwhelming favorite, as 94% of American students have a Facebook account. Ranked second was YouTube at 74.66%, followed by Twitter and Google+.
The results were very different for university students in Japan. Twitter was the most widely used at 74.5%. Ranked second was the much talked about LINE with 68.11% of the students using it. Following these top two services were, in order, were Facebook (65.5%), Nico Nico Douga (56.8%), and mixi (47.8%).
This seems to suggest that, in Japan, university students prefer to use Japanese social media sites, with LINE, Nico Nico Douga, and mixi ranking very highly.
2. What social media sites do you use the most? (only one answer)
In Japan, Twitter is used by 40.2%, and in the United States, Facebook is used by 63.8% of students, making them the top social media choices in each respective country. It appears that the social media sites with the largest user base (Facebook and Twitter) are the most widely used by students in both countries.
3. Which social media do you use least frequently? (only one answer)
In the United States, Google+ was used least among 16.1% of the students. However, there does not appear to be a particular site that is used least of all among American students, as the responses to this question were somewhat evenly distributed.
While 34.6% of university students in Japan said that they used mixi least frequently, a very significant portion of the students (30.1%) said that there were no sites that they would say they used significantly less frequently than the others. This suggests that the desire to use social media is still extremely high overall.
4. Which social media services would you like to use in the future? (multiple answers allowed)
At 39.40%, Facebook is the social media site that university students in Japan are most interested in using in the future. Together with Twitter, LINE, YouTube, and Nico Nico Douga, the desire to use these top five social media sites is around 30%, demonstrating a very high level of interest in the more established services.
On the other hand, university students in the United States are most interested in Pinterest and Instagram, demonstrating a high level of interest in new photo-sharing services. In addition, there was a major difference when compared to Japan in that LinkedIn, a site primarily designed for business users that used to be low-ranking within recent usage trends, entered the list in fourth place.
5. Within social media, have you ever come across wrong information about a company? (Yes/No)
In terms of university students coming across wrong information about a company over social media, nearly half of the students in the United States responded positively with a high figure of 46.23%, whereas in Japan, only 27.40% of students responded positively. As the use of social media increases, we can expect more cases of people coming across wrong information.
8. Having used a variety of social media tools, do you have a favorable impression of companies that send out information? (Yes/No)
With regard to companies that send out information over social media, approximately 70% of university students in both Japan and the United States indicated having a favorable impression of them.
11. For the companies and brands that you are interested in, rather than just obtaining official information, would you like to also receive unofficial information as long as it is reliable? (Yes/No)
In both the United States and Japan, more than 60% of university students indicated that, as long as they could benefit from it, they did not mind whether the information was official or unofficial. As a great amount and variety of information is disseminated over social media, companies will need to take into account the content of not only their official accounts, but also other individual accounts that can distribute company and brand information.
12. What are the reasons why you want to obtain more information about companies over social media? (multiple answers allowed)
Information that university students hope to obtain from companies over social media appears to revolve primarily around "product offers and free gifts" in both the United States and Japan (78.2% and 66.6% respectively). Other reasons for the students' social media use included "to find out about new trends in the company or brand" and "for job searching." The interest of university students in company accounts is strongly linked to their hopes to receive some sort of benefit from them.