79% of corporate executives in India are members of social networking sites: Survey

According to a survey by market research firm Synovate, an overwhelming 94 per cent of corporate executives in India are aware of the social networking phenomenon and 79 per cent are actually members of one or more social networking sites. This finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom that social networking is predominantly a teenage phenomenon, reports Business Today which had commissioned the survey.

The survey suggests that Google-owned Orkut remains the most popular social networking site in India as more than 90 per cent of the respondents, across age groups, said they are members of Orkut. YouTube, also owned by Google, comes second (38%) and BigAdda, a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, is third (19%).Only 15 per cent of the respondents said they are members of Facebook, while 18 per cent said they are members of Hi5.

“Interestingly, and contrary to popular opinion, there is no evidence to suggest that LinkedIn, considered a favourite haunt of “older people”, is actually attracting its supposed target audience, at least in India. In fact, LinkedIn has a lower traction among 35+executives (at 15 per cent) and decision makers (at 12 per cent) than among executives in the 25-35 age group,” adds BT.