There is plenty to read about social media online, but rarely do I come across something that I find really interesting or even particularly believable. On any given day, you can wade through a mass of blog posts and articles about new tools with which to waste time on Twitter. I know how to waste time on Twitter. I do it all the time.

It has been quite a while since I read something I found really interesting about social media. It seems like a clean, simple, objective look at the topic - both social networking and viral marketing - is hard to come by, and a lot of "research" makes more assumptions than discoveries. Thus, Mintel's recent study of 2,000 Britons reads a lot better and seems a lot clearer than much of what we see come out of the search marketing space. I can hypothesise that the average Facebook or LinkedIn user is of a higher socio-economic standing than users of social networking sites at large, but Mintel actually put time into proving it.

The company did some extensive research into both social networking and viral marketing. Although these are vastly different phenomena, they're inherently tied due to the ways in which viral content is most effectively spread. Despite the fact that the report focusing on viral content talks quite extensively about email marketing, I think we often underestimate the power of sharing material via social networks. I know that people share content on Facebook in which they have a vested interest, but I'm more likely to click a shared link on Facebook than I am to pay attention to an unsolicited email.

In regards to the emailing of viral pieces, the report attempts to decipher which demographics respond best to different types of email marketing. It seems that, in general (and I mean general, as the report gets into far more detail), the older the audience, the more likely they are to appreciate mailed attachments and promotions. People my age are easily irritated by unsolicited emails. I can attest to this: unless the email is from a community in which I regularly participate, it's usually deleted without being opened. I honestly feel bad about doing this sometimes, but I believe many people, especially those of my age group, do the same thing.

I also belong to the group who get very upset when we get text message, or SMS, spam. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I have none of the tolerance for mobile marketing that I do for email promotions. Many of us still belong to the outdated, "How did you get my number!" crew, and we'd rather send ten emails to the spam folder than get one message sent to our phones. You may feel that discussing text message marketing goes beyond the realm of an SEO blog, but with the constant merging of telephones and Internet, the two media are becoming one in the same.

If reaching people through email were 100% effective, it might help combat another item brought up in the report. According to Mintel's research, 10% of the UK's social networking profiles are dormant. Part of this high rate of dormancy probably stems from the culture surrounding some social media sites: as brought up in the report, sites like Friend Finder serve a different purpose than Bebo or MySpace. I don't have experience with Friend Finder, but New Zealand's OldFriends website does not require I log in every day. Because it emails me whenever a member joins a workplace or school which I attended, I barely need to visit the site at all. I do open OldFriends emails; I wonder how many of the site's one million members do not? As internet marketers in 2008's climate, we'd not recommend creating a site which people don't have to visit on a regular basis; however, one could argue that OldFriends and its ilk are still keeping quite a large user-base happy.

As an aside, one million members is a huge membership for a site which caters to a country of four million. One quarter of New Zealand's population are not actually members of OldFriends; the fake profiles are very easy to spot. However, most of the site's members are real people, and it's interesting that we tend to forget "1.0"-style sites like this when talking about social networking and social media. Sure, they don't have the functionality of a Facebook or a Bebo, but they attract an arguably wider audience.

I'm also particularly pleased to see mobile Internet getting another mention in this report. Rarely do I see anyone really articulate why mobile Internet has so much potential. You'll hear the obvious statements: Google Maps is readily available when you're lost in a grid of Los Angeles freeways or in the Idaho wilderness. However, I like Mintel's assessment that, "The mobile Internet [gives] consumers 24/7 access to their networks wherever they are, but particularly in the valuable 'third space' between home and place of work or education." To translate that into blog-speak, that means that you can Twitter on the train. Whilst you probably knew that, that's only just dawning on "regular users," who are increasingly figuring out what they can do with their cellphones. When more sites like... well, ours, develop stellar mobile style sheets, the Internet will really cease to be something people access from fixed locations. Do you remember when telephones had to be attached to a wall? I haven't had a land-line since I was seventeen; it's likely that the Internet is going in much the same direction.

On the viral marketing side of things, the report covers some of the integrated basics of social media marketing that many of us probably forget on a daily basis. Drawing data from surveyed participants is always going to uncover such information, because we're immersed in the industry and forget the simple things that make audience members pay attention. We forget that people get sick of being pitched at. Not only that, but as times goes on, more people will become aware that something has been created for marketing purposes. Right now, vocal Digg and StumbleUpon users can often spot us coming, but average users are becoming more aware of marketing campaigns as well. The report addresses the "dangers of wear out," which I can only assume is going to get worse the longer we play the viral marketing game.

Again, it seems to me that this is a nicely objective look at two aspects of our industry that probably get too much coverage from those of us too close to their sources. Some of the report's findings don't come as a surprise to me, but plenty are reassuring and plenty are new. And it really confirms that you shouldn't spam me over any medium, because I'm a stereotypical twenty-four year old, and I'm not going to listen!