Study will promote better social media understanding

15:00 20th January 2009

Firms with an online presence hoping to gain an insight into the social media phenomenon will be pleased with the news that YouGov is to undertake a Social Media Tracking Study every quarter.

Consumer behaviour on social media addresses such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace will be analysed by marketers to target their campaigns better.

The international research company will produce its first findings in February, which will be based on 2,000 interviews with social networking site members across the UK.

YouGov's head of media consulting, David Lucas, commented on the project: "The rise of social networking sites has been phenomenal, with our pilot study finding that 67 per cent of 16-24 year-olds have over 100 friends in their social network.

"The next challenge for these websites is to find a way to take advantage of this audience and make money from their product."

As well as frequency of use, the study will also attempt to gauge the effect of different forms of advertising within social media websites.