Survey shows half of online Canadians are members of Facebook

“Reprinted with permission from The National NetWorker“

Published January 2008

By ZALE TABAKMAN, TNNW Canadian Bureau Chief

In between the Facebook and LinkedIn were all the standard ones, MySpace (16%), MSNSpaces (16%), Hi5 (9%), and Friendster (3%).

These results reflect the Canadian personality and how Canadians view each other and the world. Understanding this view can help when networking with Canadians online and in person.

Another fascinating number is the percentage of people who had heard of Facebook and LinkedIn but were not interested in joining. For Facebook it was 30% but for LinkedIn at (22%) To look at the numbers a slightly different way, about a third of the people who knew about Facebook were not interested in joining, but about 75% of the people who had heard about LinkedIn were not interested in joining.

The report describes what people do in Facebook and other sites, the majority of which is some form of connecting with friends and making new friends. A small number of Facebook people use Facebook for business purposes (22%) but another group of people (38%) of people use it for developing or promoting their business. There were no statistics about how many people use the social network for career development. I am not sure if that is included in the developing or promoting their business or if the numbers were too small for statistical purposes.

These statistics are telling about the Canadian personality. Canadians are well known for apologizing when you bump into them. Bump into a Canadian and see what happens. Canadians. Canadians do not like aggressive people. (The most frequent expression I ever hear is “Zale!!! You Can’t Say That!!!”).

Canadians think it’s tacky to talk about money or to ask for an order. I was in a Flea Market the other day. Anybody who has been in a flea market understands the pure entrepreneurial spirit that exists there. It’s in the air. But it was a Canadian flea market, it was unbelievable how polite people were. Nobody was trying to sell me anything, nobody even called out to us as we walked the isles. Compare my experience to walking down a New York City street or a souk in any part of Asia.

When trying to understand the numbers, it’s important to focus on the clearly different user experience on the sites. Facebook is social personal site with many ways of interacting with other members, but LinkedIn is all about business and a person’s resume. LinkedIn has no birthday nonsense nor places to post pictures of your son’s first tooth.

For a Canadian, putting their resume and all their accomplishments up for the world to see, is the essence of being aggressive and boisterous. But, to succeed in the LinkedIn world – you need to let everybody know about your accomplishments.

You can review the Survey of Canadian usage of LinkedIn on Zinc Research.

A few personal notes about LinkedIn.

I have created a lecture on the Seven Ways to Generate Business With LinkedIn. The first part of the lecture reviews different features of LinkedIn and how they can be used to generate business. The second part of the lecture explains seven common things that business people need to do and how LinkedIn can make it all happen. I think there in fact many more than seven ways described.

Sending me a LinkedIn invitation is now worth over 1,000,000 in your network. Yup, that is correct. My second level connections (which are your 3rd level) is over 1,000,000 people and growing daily. My profile is found at www.linkedin.com/in/ZaleTabakman.

Till Next Month!

–Zale
www.ZaleTabakman.ca

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