My dear friend Christie at ThinkTank Treasury had a great post on 'Why people go online'. She writes that “Ruder Finn’s Intent Index is an ongoing online research study that provides a comprehensive analysis of the underlying motivations or reasons people go online – their intent."
The interactive graph has a great section on Advocacy and Influencing Others. According to the study, 56% of people go online to influence others and the research goes on to include: 57% forward content I've received from someone else, 23% join a discussion on a social networking site, 21% go online to influence people's opinions and 16% get people to talk about a subject.
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