Prior
to the event Max and GBTA Europe conducted brief surveys of their
Digital Native and Digital Immigrant groups respectively to compare
and contrast each groups’ use of social media.
The
survey found that how Digital Immigrants accessed social media
through mobile
phones (77%) compared to similar figures for
Digital Natives (74%). However Digital Immigrants were over three
times as likely to access social media via a tablet (46%) than the
Digital Native group (15%).
Facebook
was the most popular website by far for both groups – followed by
LinkedIn and news sites in the case of Digital Immigrants and YouTube
and Twitter for Digital Natives.
The
survey revealed that 94% of the Digital Native group access Facebook
once a day, compared to 63.8% of Digital Immigrants. Digital Natives
were almost twice as likely to update their Facebook status on a
daily basis (22%) than Digital Immigrants (12%), but 50% of both
groups updated it less than once a week.
The
Digital Native session was supported by RADIUS. Kieran Hartwell,
Senior Vice President for EMEA at the company commented, ‘Max’s
talk was a valuable reminder that there is a whole generation of
people coming into the work force and our customer base for whom
communicating and collaborating digitally comes so naturally. While
this survey highlights many similarities in the way Digital Natives
and Digital Immigrants use social media, the
keydifference lies in the instinctive manner in which
Digital Natives incorporate it into their day-to-day lives.’
The
association announced, during its closing session at conference, a
plan to introduce a group of seven Digital Natives from each GBTA’s
regions across the globe as a panel to be led by Max Keegan. This
will act as a reference point to GBTA’s 5,000 global members
through the association’s own online social network, GBTA Hub.
