A press release from ShareThis reports on a new study by Forrester Consulting (commissioned by ShareThis). Some of the statistics reported make for interesting reading and possible further analysis with respect to social marketing activities.

A long held belief by many website owners, particularly bloggers, is that social bookmarking is not about sharing information found, it is more about self promotion. Some of these statistics may back this up. For example:

• Email is still primary channel for sharing — 69 percent of adults cite email as the primary source of receiving information
• 64 percent of adults and 60 percent of youth still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information
• Web tools such as wikis are used by 53 percent of youth vs. 29 percent of adults, with webpage services such as ‘tags’ being shared by 31 percent of youth vs. only 16 percent of adults
• In general, men are more likely to share something to appear cool or to look like an expert
• Women are more likely to share directly, especially via cell phone texting
• Women are more likely to share products or ideas they like via easy or direct sharing methods

Visitors to your website or blog are more likely to share using the ‘email to a friend’ rather than the social bookmarking sites. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you could have a built in SMS to a friend’s option as well.

Social marketing is more likely to be effective if it targets women. For men, social marketing needs to target the ‘cool’ aspects of their lives.

While statistics can be manipulated to support any argument, it seems from this data that serious sharing is done using traditional means rather than the social media marketing outlets currently available.