Social Networking more popular than Email

As a 40 something who has only recently explored the opportunities offered by Facebook, it was surprising to read in Adweek that a recent Nielsen report highlights that social networking is now a more popular activity online than email (in terms of active reach*) by 67% to 65%.

What does this fact mean for those of us involved in materials marketing?

Well you can upload corporate profiles to Facebook - but the question is why would you?

To check things out I used a fairly high precision materials based search that meant a lot to me in a previous materials life, namely "Zirconia".

My search results led to a scary confrontation with "Ms. Zirconia Starfighter" an Athens based alternative model and Go-Go Dancer who is friends with "Chainsaw George Prionas".

Now to say this is not quite what I was expecting is somewhat of an understatement.

The "Zirconia Morris Dancers" also turned up to the party, but eventually on page 3 of the search results there was what appeared to be a fledgling entreprise with a commercial angle selling zirconia knives from China.

Perhaps this somewhat cursory research indicates there's an opportunity for manufacturers of Partially Stabilsed Zirconia to claim the Facebook territory from Ms. Starfighter!

If anyone has examples of how a materials business can take advantage of vehicles such as Facebook I'd be fascinated to hear.

Of course industry specific networks such as Social.Materials are a whole different ball game in terms of commercial opportunities, although we are somewhat behind Facebook in terms of members.

*Active Reach is the % of the internet audience that do something.