Key Findings from the study include data such as:

• 105 million Americans contribute to social media
• Social networking has grown 93% since 2006
• 7 million Americans are "heavy" social media contributors (6+ activities) who connect with 248 people on a ‘one to many' basis in a typical week
• 54% of micro-bloggers post or "tweet" daily
• 72% of micro-bloggers under age 18 post or "tweet" daily

The report concludes that market trends and customer opinion are being shaped by end users more rapidly and with greater impact on business than ever before as an entirely new form of leisure develops around talking and sharing, providing opinions and perspectives... and suggests that Websites need to connect directly with users or the users will create their own venues that are harder for companies to track and participate with effectively.

The study includes the differences in use and frequency among younger users, teens and college students, and light, medium and heavy social media users to understand usage habits and motivations. It also describes photo-sharing, video-sharing, micro-blogging, social networking, tagging, wikis, etc. among 20 online communication and social media channels.

Please visit here to access the full report from Netpop Research and view a slide preview