In my last article on Ofcom’s recently released report on the ‘Communications Market’ I covered their research into consumers’ general media consumption habits.

In this article I’m going to focus on Ofcom’s findings as regards the internet, namely who’s consuming what on the web, and what devices they’re using to do so.

As there’s quite a bit of information to digest, I’ve broken it down into 3 sections:

 - What are people using the internet for?

- How is social media changing people’s online habits?

- What impact is mobile having on people’s online consumption? 

What Are People Using the Internet For?

It’s a generalisation but the report indicates that the young are more likely to see the internet as a vehicle for entertainment and self-expression whereas older users are more likely to have a functional approach to it. 

Ofcom’s research found that 16-34s were more likely to use the internet to relax and have fun than other age groups. This contrasts with the over 55s, who were more likely to use the internet for practical pursuits such as ‘to find out or learn things’ and ‘for contact with other people’.

In general,  in terms of online pursuits, social networking has seen phenomenal growth across all age groups (see below) in the past 3 years – up from 9% to 23% of people’s time online – but instant messaging is in decline although this may just be a reflection of IM possibilities within platforms like Facebook. Emailing (for pleasure, rather than work) has remained remarkably resilient as a pursuit, with its share of the online time similar to 2007 despite the plethora of other communications options at people’s disposal.

So if the young are having fun online, what are they doing? Ofcom reports that the 2 major forms of online media consumption are playing games and downloading music, movie and video clips, with the latter having just overtaken the former in terms of popularity.  However, although these activities are most popular amongst the 15-24s, they’re also notably popular amongst older age groups too -  43% of 25-44s who have the internet at home and 31% of 45-64s played games online, compared with 55% of 15-24s, and very similar proportions downloaded music, movies and videos too. Even 14% of 65+s with home access to the internet play games online – almost twice as many as watch catch up TV.

But internet users are not just consuming, they’re creating too.  And the youngest age groups lead the way again in all categories. However, the only really popular content creation activities were sharing photographs online (49% of internet users had done this but 74% of 16-24s) and creating a social networking profile (44%, 77% of 16-24s).  Commenting on blogs has shown significant growth since 2007 – up from 10% to 27% – but still could not be deemed as a mass pursuit.  Making videos and uploading it to a website was a very niche pursuit – only 10% (26% of 16-24s) claimed to have done this in 2009, up just 1% from 2007.

All of  these behaviours are continuations of existing trends, although there is one trend that seems to have been specifically driven by the recent economic circumstances and that’s the desire to use the internet to save money.  53% of those with broadband access reported that they were more likely to try to save money by purchasing goods and services online than they were 12 months ago, 61%. said they were now more likely to use price comparison websites and 47% of broadband users said they were more likely to use online vouchers and voucher codes.

How is Social Media Changing People’s Online Habits

The past year has seen a significant rise in social media take up, from 30% of all UK adults to 40%. Unsurprisingly, it is Facebook that is driving this growth, achieving a 31% growth in users despite starting from a high base.  LinkedIn (+96%) and Twitter (+56%, but excluding 3rd party applications) also grew rapidly in the period, but from much smaller bases.

In terms of demographic backgrounds, unsurprisingly the younger you are, the more likely you are to have a social networking profile. Social networking is highly popular amongst 15-34s, with 61% having profiles, and 35-44s (48%) but falls off rapidly thereafter with only 20% of 45-54s and less than 10% of 55+s having profiles.

In terms of socio-economic groups, ABs caught up with C1s between 2009 and 2010 – 46% of both groups now have profiles. And women are more likely to have profiles than men – but only marginally more so (42% vs. 39%).

Not only is the social networking phenomena growing, it’s also taking up an increasing amount of our online time. In the past 3 years, social networking and blogs have increased from 9% of UK users’ total internet time to 23% in April 2010 according to audience data from UKOM/Nielsen.

However, there are some warning signs for social media as it forges from early adopters into late adopters.  Only a further 5% of the population who don’t have one have expressed an interest in setting up a social networking profile and although I think this threshold will be breached, the growth of this phenomena is probably going to slow. Also, there is also some sign that our addiction to the phenomena is starting to ebb – average time spent on Facebook has already fallen from a peak of 17 minutes per day in November 2009 to 13 minutes per day in April 2010.

What Impact is Mobile Having on People’s Online Consumption?

The availability of fast HSPA mobile data networks, the increasing adoption of smartphones and the emergence of new portable devices such as the iPad are all driving increasing consumption of the internet on mobile devices.

This is certainly reflected in Ofcom’s own findings – 45% of 15-24 year olds claimed to use their mobile phones for web and data access in Q1 2010, up from 38% in Q1 2009. This is nearly twice the number of 35-54 year olds who make the same claim (24%), and nearly six times the number of 55-64 year olds (8%).

AB consumers (29%) were more likely than those in the lower socio-economic groups to use their mobiles for web or data access, although the increases in take-up over the past year have been moderate. And men (25%) are more likely than women (21%) to use their phones in this way, although the gap is narrowing.

So how does mobile internet consumption differ from PC or laptop based consumption?

Mobile web and data users are surfing the net (about 90% of them), instant messaging (over 50% of them), emailing (about 50%) and downloading apps (about 40%).  And when they’re online, they’re staying in touch with their friends via social networking. According to GSMA mobile media metrics, Facebook accounted for a remarkable 45% of total time spent online in December 2009. Google sites were the next most intensively-used, accounting for 8% of total mobile internet time. Apart from these 2, no other mobile internet site accounted for more than 3% of total time spent online.

There’s little doubt that the mobile internet remains a significantly under-used medium for advertisers – mobile advertising requests served by Google owned AdMob, the largest of the mobile advertising networks, have more than doubled in the past year. But one other figure from Ofcom suggest the mobile internet’s story may be one of steady growth rather than the explosion many of us have been led to believe, and that is that nearly 2/3s of customers claimed that they had no interest at all in using their phone to access the internet.

Summary

So what learnings should we take from Ofcom’s findings? These are my takeaways:

 - Brands that are looking to engage younger audiences, for example those in fashion, need to look at creating at content that will entertain as well as inform. Games and music/video clips are their favourite form of entertainment.

- Most users like to observe rather than create. Content that informs and entertains will be consumed but don’t expect huge number of your visitors to interact, especially if you’re expecting them to create video content.

 - Social media is here to stay and has penetrated significantly into all demographics bar the over 55s. However, it’s pace of growth will inevitably slow and there may be some evidence that our addiction to it may be easing.

- Mobile internet access is growing, and mobile advertising is an underutilised medium given the number of people accessing the internet from their mobile. But mobile take up is growing steadily, not exploding, and we are still too fond of our PCs for it to penetrate too deeply yet.

For a full copy of Ofcom’s report on ‘The Communications Market’, click here.

By: Graham Painter

Posted in Mobile, Online, Social Networking, Web TV | No Comments »