Crimson Hexagon London Survey: Social Media Users More Likely to Complain over Twitter Than by Phone, Users ‘Slightly Guarded’ over Content Shared

- Social media monitoring and analysis platform specialist conducts London in-person survey to reveal daily social media usage and behaviour –

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Crimson Hexagon, a leading provider of big data analysis software that delivers business intelligence from social media and other data sources to businesses, has revealed the results of an in-person survey conducted at ad:tech London, the digital marketing event. The research collected responses from 125 digital marketing and technology professionals.

Crimson Hexagon’s survey garnered opinions about daily social media use, frequency and content. It quizzed respondents about the time they dedicate to social media, their specific usage, the subject matter that motivates them, and their personal and professional influences. The survey posed questions which uncovered current, over-arching trends in social media use, as well detailing which social media activities are changing the ways in which individuals express satisfaction or dissatisfaction business products, customer service or actions.

The following key findings were revealed by the survey responses:

• Half those surveyed consider their social media content to be ‘slightly guarded’. When given the option between ‘emotionally honest’, ‘slightly guarded’, and ‘completely factual’, half of respondents (50%) agreed that their social media content and tone remained somewhat defensive, while admitting that their shared content was sincere
• More than a fifth of respondents commit over four hours per day to social media. Just over a third of those surveyed said they spent between two to three hours (39%) or less than one hour per day (40%) using social media outlets. A similar proportion (41%) classified themselves as ‘average’ when considering how advanced their social media skills were
• Email, Twitter and in-person communications rank highest for business complaints. When complaining about a company’s products or customer service, more than a third (37%) of respondents choose to communicate by email, 18% prefer to complain in-person, and 16% turn to Twitter ahead of other channels including phone, letter or through third-parties
• A blend of personal and professional social media use is typical. The large majority of survey respondents (80%) use social media both personally and professionally. Staying in touch with family and friend (33%) and creating business opportunities (32%) were given as the leading uses of social media, followed by sharing content (22%) and meeting new people (13%).

Curt Bloom, EVP, Global Sales and Marketing for Crimson Hexagon said: “Social media is an increasingly powerful outlet that is used by a broad range of people for a wide variety of reasons. Supported by our survey findings, we find that individuals are increasingly expressing genuine emotions while connecting with companies over social media on a more frequent basis. We are capturing this richer understanding of social media users at Crimson Hexagon through our social media analytics platform, ForSight. Only by understanding deeper social media metrics, including the thoughts and feelings of individuals, can companies begin to make smarter business decisions in advertising, marketing, customer communications and more.”

ForSight, Crimson Hexagon’s patent-pending platform, is powered by a unique algorithm that combines human judgment with computer scalability, to measuring sentiment across billions of social media conversations. The platform currently holds 175 billion social media posts in its database, while adding an additional one billion posts to its database every two days.

About Crimson Hexagon, Inc.

Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, is the leading provider of analysis software that delivers business intelligence from big data sources like social media and other data types for global corporations.

Powered by patented technology developed at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ platform delivers the industry’s most comprehensive big data analysis capabilities for a variety of large-scale data sources.

Clients include leading global organisations such as: CBS Films, Microsoft, Paramount Pictures, Starbucks, Simon & Schuster, Twitter, The United Nations, and many more. For more information go to: http://www.crimsonhexagon.com or read the Crimson Hexagon blog: http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/blog/.