A few posts ago I talked about KnowledgeStorm’s new study on the use of social networking by B2B technology buyers. Apparently, the two facts that were getting reported were a little misleading in the way they were presented. Matt Lohman from KnowledgeStorm clears them up:

“I wanted to thank you for referencing the recent research study from KnowledgeStorm. I thought I would clarify some of the confusion with the respondent percentages: The write up of results that you reference is a bit misleading. I’ll try to explain without getting too off the deep end…

We asked about familiarity with social networks first, for which 35% replied “not familiar at all” while another 42% replied “somewhat familiar” adding up to the 77% figure. As part of further validation, the next question asked “How often do you visit social networking sites?” from which we received 31% stating “Never”. This is very close to the 35% who were “not at all familiar” in the previous question. Good confirmation there. From that point forward in the questioning, we excluded anyone who claimed they “never” visit social networking sites (the 31%). Therefore, when we got to the question that asked “What are your primary reasons for using social networking sites?” the only respondents were those individuals who visit social networking sites at least once a month (69%). Of the individuals using these sites, 70% are doing so for business development networking or development reasons.

I still think your conclusions are valid but also wanted to make sure our research wasn’t getting misconstrued. “

Thanks Matt