Social Media Growth
It’s a whole lot more than just a current trend. You may have heard it before. People talking about how important it is for your business to have a proper social media presence. But what exactly does that mean? Let’s take a look…
The Number of Users IS the Big Deal
We know how popular social media channels are today. Or at least we think we do. People spend and incredible amount of time “checking” their various feeds and channels, but how many people? The answer is: A LOT of people. Probably many more than you ever imagined. Here are some statistics:
Internet Users (In Billions)
Mobile Social Media Users (In Billions)
Social Media Users (In Billions)
%
Social Media Channel User Growth (2016)
The number of worldwide social media users is a mind-boggling number of people, slightly more than the entire population of India & China combined. Out of that huge group of people, we know that the vast majority of them are using social media on a mobile device. This is a crucial point at which the need for responsive web design comes into play.
A Closer Look
Let’s take a look at a few facts & figures from 6 of the most popular social networks online:
- 1.9 billion unique monthly users.
- Predominately female.
- Best place to reach millenials and generation X.
- 75% of users spend 20 minutes or more on Facebook every day.
- The average Facebook user has 338 friends.
- 600 million unique monthly users.
- Predominately female.
- 90% of users are under 35 years old.
- 53% of users follow specific brands.
- Over 80 million daily photo uploads.
- 317 million unique monthly users.
- Predominately female.
- Even distribution of users between 18 – 64 years old..
- Users referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy.
- Best longetivity – Half-life of a pin is 105 days.
- 317 million unique monthly users.
- Predominately male.
- Most users between 18 & 29 years old.
- 53% of users never post any updates.
- Average Twitter user spends only 2.7 minutes per day using app.
YouTube
- 1 billion unique monthly users.
- Predominately male.
- Reaches more 18 – 49 year olds than cable television.
- More than 2 million video views per minute.
- Average YouTube viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes.
- 106 million unique monthly users.
- Slight male user majority.
- 45% of people making $75K/Yr use LinkedIn.
- Users are less likely to use other social networks.
- 80% of online B2B referrals come via LinkedIn.
While this breakdown is in no way complete, you can quickly see how important it is to choose the proper social media channel(s) for your business to capitalize on all of this traffic. Every network has a different user base and a different reach. It’s vital that these things are taken into consideration when planning a social media campaign before it begins. Just jumping into any network without proper research and a plan could quickly become a waste of time and possibly money, especially if you plan to use paid advertising.
The Solution
The way to get the most from social networks is to find the ones that best fit your customer demographic and post well written, relevant and ORIGINAL content to those channels. Post links from pages on your site or articles that appear in your blog. This excellent, original content quickly separates itself from worthless spammy content and is often shared among users. Some social media marketing services post identical “targeted” content to hundreds or even thousands of accounts. Most of these posts are so generic that they may not even correctly fit the scope of the business.
While this initially might seem great, it does little if anything to actually generate interest in your business. In some cases, the irrelevant posts actually annoy the viewer and send them off to do business with someone else. Make sure you are doing your social marketing properly, and reap the benefit of a never ending source of new customers for your business.
Need help? Feel free to contact us for assistance in setting up and executing a proper social media campaign today!