Bottom Line: Amongst adults, 69% of those surveyed by Forrester Consulting still rely on email as their primary mode of sharing information online. Even among children, 56% of shared content was still being received through email.

What is interesting is the growing group of “power sharers” that is beginning to emerge. These are people (see: us) who share content with 11 or more people at least weekly. Adults make up about 35% of this “power sharer” category while children pick up the slack carrying 65% of the weight.

Some other facts that Forrester’s research uncovered –

• Email is still primary channel for sharing — 69 percent of adults cite email as the primary source of receiving information

• Less than one-third of online adults said they learned about the new content from generally shared content sources such as YouTube, a wiki, or social networking sites

• 64 percent of adults and 60 percent of youth still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information

• However this is not trackable by publishers, making sharing by email tough to measure

• Though the primary motivation for sharing differs, 81 percent of adults claim that, when cutting and pasting content to share, they share to help others – believing that a person will benefit from the information they share

Marketers it might not be quite time to throw away your email lists for shiny new Social Media toys.

Read More Statistics . . .

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