Updated Social Network Site Survey

Even with the warm weather here in Boston, the summer has ended. So I decided to look back at my survey of the summer associates. I posted the preliminary results a few weeks a go.

For those of you interested in viewing the detailed data you can download a file with the full results: Social Survey (.csv file)

I had 56 responses from the 75 summer associates.

77% had a Facebook account and most of them checked Facebook at least once a day.

Of those that checked Facebook at least once a day, the average college graduating year was 2004. For those who checked it less frequently or did not have an account, the average college graduating year was 2003.

Of those with Facebook accounts, 79% would use Facebook for business purposes.

There was a sharp drop off from Facebook to LinkedIn. Only 19% had a LinkedIn account. That does not surprise me. Facebook offers a much more dynamic way to communicate and network than LinkedIn. That is shown by their usage. Only 9% checked LinkedIn weekly, the rest answered rarely.

There were similar usage numbers for MySpace as there were for LinkedIn.

I would expect that the survey numbers were skewed downward on usage of these sites. In my request, I stated that the results would be anonymous (and they are). But, I think they may want to downplay their use of the site to appear more "professional" given the way many members of the media portray these social sites as frivolous.

To me it looks like next year's lawyers are using Facebook actively and see it as a business tool. We better figure out how to meet their expectations.

knowledge management
facebook
linkedin