Nielsen has conducted a survey on the use of social networking and reasons why people register on them and has come out with some very interesting statistics.

Here are some of the findings:

82 % - Use social networking sites to keep in touch with the people they KNOW.

58 % - Use social networking site to reconnect with old friends they are not in touch with.

53 % -  Joined a social networking site to make new friends.

43 % - Join a social network for Business Networking.

66 % - Dont consider social networking as a substitute to Offline Meets.

43 % - Will Meetcomfortable meeting offline, people whom they have met through a social network.

68 % - Use Fake/Alias ids on social networks to hide their personal details

So Can This Survey Be Believed Completely?

Well most surveys work on the basis of a sample and so does this one hence the results are skewed based on the sample composition. The online survey is based on a sample size of 300 respondents (is that enough?) who use social networking sites atleast once a month. Also the ratio of male to female was quite skewed with only 50 female respondents to the survey. Another factor would have been the age group i.e. a large part of the survey audience belonged to an older age group of 25-34 yearswhile only 71 respondents belonged to the 15-24 years’ age group.

Also according to me 43% for business networking is quite high given that these were social nerworks and not business networks people were on.  So even if one can say that 43% of people on all social networks in India are interested in business networking then that would be a huge market for a standalone business networking platform in India.

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