Ressac recently unveiled its first-ever Canadian study highlighting users’ behavior on social platforms as well as their perception and receptivity to influencers, branded content and online advertising. Analysis of key findings.
Conceived by ressac and powered by Léger, this study, conducted by and for marketing professionals, provides insights for effective and relevant planning on social platforms in 2023.
The Digital Canada 2023 study is divided into 4 main themes: user behaviour on social platforms, their perceptions and receptivity to influencers, branded content and online advertising.
In a constantly changing world where information sources are often unreliable, it was crucial for us to deploy a study that was current, relevant and, above all, able to make a major difference in the development of a self-respecting digital marketing strategy,” adds Pablo Stevenson, President and Founder of ressac.
Let’s move on to a few key facts to remember.
1. Social networks: to each his own platform
A large table to start the study, very useful for marketers! It shows the different social platforms and the percentage of Canadian Internet users who have an account, according to their gender and age.
It shows that Facebook is still the leading social network in Canada for almost all categories. More than 70% of people over 35 years old even use it daily!
Surprise: among 16-24 year olds, it’s not TikTok (62%), Instagram (85%) or Snapchat (74%) that come out on top but… Youtube (91%). Facebook (79%) is even still in the top group.
Note that there is a difference between women, who are more attracted to visual platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and TikTok) and men, who prefer text-based networks (Linkedin, Twitter, Reddit and Twitch).
Finally, the report notes Canada’s two digital solitudes: Quebec is indeed less present on Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter or Reddit than the ROC. Similarly, the east of the country, including Quebec, is more present on Messenger while the rest of the country swears by Whatsapp instead.
2. Influencers: the great generation gap
In total, almost a third of Canadian Internet users (31%) follow influencers or content creators. But the figure varies greatly by age: 59% of 16-34 year olds but only 10% of those over 55.
In terms of platforms, Instagram is the most popular (77% of 16-34 year olds follow influencers), ahead of Youtube and Facebook. An influence that lives up to its name as indicated by the proportion below who have changed their point of view on a subject after being exposed to such content.
3. Branded content has high youth engagement
This theme will be of interest primarily to marketers who are looking for ways to stimulate a user’s interest in branded content.
Here again, we remain on the same orders of magnitude for following corporate brands online: 37% of total internet users, 58% among 16-34 year olds and Instagram dominating the debate (60%) ahead of Facebook (59%) and Youtube (20%).
The vast majority (87%) of Canadian Internet users who follow brands or companies say they have already started doing so after visiting their website.
An instructive element for community managers: why do people unsubscribe from a brand on social networks? Firstly (60%) because it is boring: its content is not interesting. Secondly, because it doesn’t match their values (50%) and finally, in the same proportion, because the brand talks to them too much!
Methodology:
This study is based on the results of a web survey of a representative sample of 3,000 English or French speaking Canadian Internet users aged 16 or older, conducted from August 1 to 12, 2022. They were weighted by age, gender, region, mother tongue, education and presence of minor children in the household to ensure a representative sample of the Canadian population.
