SocialTwist: Email is top online sharing channel

By analyzing over 10 million referrals, content-sharing widget developers SocialTwist uncovered some interesting facts on which channels are most being used by Internet users to share content.

by Helen Leggatt

While one might think that the likes of Twitter and Facebook would be top channels for sharing content, SocialTwist found this not to be true.

Their findings show that the top channels for sharing are email and instant messaging. Only then did Facebook and micro-blogging tool Twitter feature on the chart.

"Twitter is so popular and has been growing like crazy. But if you look at the data, the usage is extremely low," said SocialTwist president Vijay Pullur in recent interview with socialmediaexplorer.com.

"We have a very wide cross-section of users and the data is a general aggregate using a data sample of 10 million messages. What appears to me is that the world of Internet users is a lot bigger than the tech savvy world you and I live in."

Other findings from SocialTwist's "Social Media Sharing Trends 2009 Report" include:

- Only 2% of shares happen over Bookmarking sites.

- In the Email channel, Yahoo Mail is the most preferred, followed by MSN.

- Google's services like Google Bookmarking, Google Talk, and Gmail, are lagging in their respective channels when it comes to shared content

- LinkedIn, as a networking site, ranks the lowest when it comes to social media sharing.