{"id":2295,"date":"2008-11-11T10:36:46","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T10:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/?p=2295"},"modified":"2021-01-04T14:17:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T13:17:02","slug":"demographics-twitter-virtual-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/demographics-twitter-virtual-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"Demographics, Twitter and Virtual Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While browsing through some archives recently, I came across … ArcelorMittal<\/a> using Second Life to hold retail investor meetings<\/a> – or at least, to hold a mixed reality meeting, with some people present in real life, and others present in a virtual life.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ve talked before about using live chat for retail investor meetings<\/a>, and I’ve mentioned companies using Second Life for recruiting<\/a> before.<\/p>\n

But the use of Second Life<\/a> for investor meetings is interesting, and – not surprisingly – this caused a fair stir a few months ago. <\/p>\n

Not only is the use of this technology for this purpose interesting, so too is the underlying reason: that ArcelorMittal have an aging group of retail shareholders. Apparently the average age is over 65<\/a>, and, quite rightly, ArcelorMittal have identified this as a problem. (Good for them for recognising this – HR data was covered by Infohrm at their recent conference<\/a>, but shareholder data is very important too). <\/p>\n

I wonder how successful this venture was for ArcelorMittal? Apparently 50-70 avatars (or representations of people) came to the event. I’d like to know the numbers that turned up to the real-life section of the event – and how many of the people that came to the Second Life version were already investors, or were seriously interested in investing.<\/p>\n

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Is Second Life really full of people who might invest – using real life money – in ArcelorMittal? <\/p>\n

There is some information available about age-ranges<\/a>, and some on how many people regularly use Second Life<\/a>, but no clear indication of whether these are likely to be investors. <\/p>\n

However, Quantcast<\/a> tells us that 56% of Second Life visitors, at least in the US, earn less than $60k\/year (27% earn less than $30k), and that 33% are under 18. <\/p>\n

Possibly not ideal investor recruitment territory, then.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, ArcelorMittal deserve kudos for trying this out. But what else could be tried?<\/p>\n

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The average age of shareholders in the UK<\/a> is (or was, back in 2006) between 35-54, and 42% of shareholders are classed as A\/B (or middle\/upper middle class).<\/p>\n

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The Twitter demographics from Quantcast seem to indicate that Twitter users are more likely to be shareholders: the average age of Twitter users is higher (only 1% of under 18’s), they are wealthier (29% earn over $100k\/year compared to 20%) and better educated (63% college-educated compared to 52%). <\/p>\n

Now, Twitter<\/a> isn’t the same as Second Life, but it can be used as part of an online conference, so that the audience is at their desk (as for a webcast), and can see what you are displaying (perhaps a mix of webcast\/video\/audio\/slides) and simultaneously see and participate in the related Twitter stream of comments and questions. <\/p>\n

This takes some doing, for all parties:<\/p>\n

The company has to <\/p>\n