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Must-see social media stats

Facebook_logo By Amanda Ponzar

Social media is not just for photo sharing, keeping up with friends and networking; it’s now part of almost any integrated marketing communications plan (for consumers). Best of all, social media is pretty much free (how many of us can afford to buy Super Bowl ad space?) though it still requires strategy and planning.

Next time someone asks you why they should mess with social media, share some of these stats thatLinkedIn_logo_1  show how pervasive social media (and all online use) really is: 

From “14 social media stats for your next presentation” by Arik Hanson:

  • Nearly a quarter of social network users indicated that Facebook is the social site or service that most influences their buying decisions. No other site or service was named by more than 1 percent of the sample, and 72 percent indicated that no one social site or service influenced their buying decisions the most. [Source: Tom Webster, The Social Habit]
  • Twitter is as familiar to Americans as Facebook (with 92 percent and 93 percent familiarity, respectively); however, Twitter use stands at 8 percent of Americans age 12 and older. [Source: Tom Webster, The Social Habit]
  • Fifty-seven million people read and follow blogs. [Source: Blogging, April 2011, B2B Social Media Guide]
  • More than 12 million adults maintain a blog. [Source: Blogging, April 2011, B2B Social Media Guide]
  • Approximately 20,000 users contribute more than half of all Twitter content, which is .01 percent of total users. [Source: Blogging, April 2011, B2B Social Media Guide]
  • How social networking site use breaks down: 92 percent use Facebook, 29 percent use MySpace, 18 percent LinkedIn, 13 percent Twitter. [Source: Pew Internet and American LifeTwitter  Project, Social networking sites and our lives, June 16, 2011]
  • Nearly twice as many men use LinkedIn (63 percent compared with 37 percent of women). All other social networking sites have significantly more female users than male users. [Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, Social networking sites and our lives, June 16, 2011]

Or these, from “Internet 2010 in Numbers

Social media

  • 152 million–- The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
  • 25 billion –- Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010
  • 100 million –- New accounts added on Twitter in 2010
  • 175 million –- People on Twitter as of September 2010
  • 7.7 million–- People following @ladygaga (Lady Gaga, Twitter’s most followed user).
  • 600 million–- People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
  • 250 million–- New people on Facebook in 2010.
  • 30 billion–- Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month.
  • 70% –- Share of Facebook’s user base located outside the United States.
  • 20 million-– The number of Facebook apps installed each day.

Email

  • 107 trillion –- The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.
  • 294 billion –- Average number of email messages per day.
  • 1.88 billion –- The number of email users worldwide.
  • 480 million –- New email users since the year before.
  • 89.1% –- The share of emails that were spam.
  • 262 billion –- The number of spam emails per day (assuming 89% are spam).
  • 2.9 billion –- The number of email accounts worldwide.
  • 25% –- Share of email accounts that are corporate.

Websites

  • 255 million –- The number of websites as of December 2010.
  • 21.4 million –- Added websites in 2010.

Comments

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Mary Schmidt

Amanda,

"There are ways" Exactly! Hence, my point re having a strategy. Unfortunately, all too often people are seduced by numbers and rush in headlong. Rather it's a new geographic market, pursuit of a particular demographic sector or using a "new" tool. The lack of analysis, strategy, and execution is why we have so many bad web sites, abandoned FB pages and ineffective (and annoying) social media of all types.

freelance writer

We are living in globalization era... Those numbers are thrilling me

Amanda P.

Mary, good points. I did have something in the original post about consumer versus B2B but removed it thinking most of our readers are sole proprietors or work for B2C organizations (so just added that back in to the post). That said, even when selling to a business, companies are selling to individuals, so I think there are ways to use expert blogs, targeted social media trade groups, LinkedIn networking, etc. for a B2B.

Mary Schmidt

Ah, but then one must break down the numbers by type of customer and what you're selling. Facebook is good for B2C (business to consumer) - B2B not so much. And, it's often poorly implemented.

A company that, for example, is developing and selling a very sophisticated product (B2B) is not going to find investors or customers by using a Facebook page. Nor do they need to dive into Twitter. If they (the founders) ALREADY have a twitter following from other ventures, etc. - then it can be of use. (Think Sean Parker, Guy Kawasaki, the super tech geeks doing very niche products in the Valley.)

The "gotcha" about social media is that it's not really new - rather it's new technology that enables the "social" in many different ways. Blogs, web sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - all are - in fact, social media. But, before leaping in, you need a strategy (and to know where/how your customers will be looking for you - and for recommendations for your product.)

P.S. You can build it and they won't come - as evidenced by some sad, empty, abandoned FB pages I saw today while doing research for a client (who does B2B for companies who do B2C AND B2B. Gets complicated fast, doesn't it?)

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