Social media: Love it or hate it, you need to be on it. Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn help businesses and blogs expand the reach of their marketing efforts. Why are social media networks an important component of your overall strategy? Just check out some of the statistics for some selected networks.
Facebook is the most popular social media network, and nobody is even close. Here are some stats posted by Blue Corona.
- 22% of the world’s total population uses Facebook.
- Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform, with 79% of American internet users.
- Based on total population, (not just internet users) 68% of U.S. adults are on Facebook.
- 76% of Facebook users visited the site daily during 2016, with over 1.6 billion daily visitors, compared to 70% of daily usage in 2015.
- More than 65 million businesses have a Facebook business page.
- Facebook accounts for one in every six minutes spent online and one in every five minutes spent on mobile.
- More than 2 million advertisers regularly use Facebook to market their business.
Did you know Twitter recently increased its character limit to 280, doubling it from its original 140. We’ll see how this shakes out, but what people love about Twitter is how tweets need to be short and to the point. Twitter has struggled to keep up with the popularity of Facebook, but it is a good place for customers to follow brands and learn about updates to products. Stats from Blue Corona.
- 88% of businesses with more than 100 employees use Twitter for marketing purposes.
- 36% of 18 – 29 year olds use Twitter.
- 22% of 30 – 49 year olds use Twitter.
- 18% of 50 – 64 year olds use Twitter.
- 42% of Twitter users use the site daily.
- 8% of US Companies use Twitter for marketing purposes.
- 74% of Twitter users follow small businesses to get product updates.
Instagram is a photo-sharing social media network that attracted a lot of attention because it allowed users to add filters to their pictures, giving them a retro feel. However, Instagram has become a popular place for companies to market their products. Stats from Blue Corona.
- 51% of Instagram users access the platform daily, and 35% say they look at the platform several times per day.
- As of April, 2017, Instagram Stories is used by more than 200 million people every day, up from 150 million people in January. Snapchat most recently reported that it has 161 million daily active users in February.
- 32% of Instagram users attended college.
- There are 8 million registered businesses using Instagram business profiles.
- Instagram has1 million monthly active advertisers—up from just 200,000 in March 2016.
- 60% of the top brands on Instagram use the same filter for every post.
- In March 2017, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, got directions, called, emailed, or direct messaged to learn about a business based on an Instagram ad.
LinkedIn is geared more toward businesses. It is a good place for businesses to share their blog posts. Because the network caters to the business community, it is not as casual as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Stats from Hootsuite and Wordstream.
- More than 1 million people use LinkedIn’s publishing platform, sharing over 130,000 posts each week
- 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content
- 57% of companies have a LinkedIn Company Page
- 50% of B2B buyers use LinkedIn when making purchasing decisions
- More than 1 million LinkedIn users have published long-form content, with 160,000 long-form posts being published weekly, and more 19.7 million SlideShare presentations have been uploaded to the platform.
And, there’s more
The above social media networks are but a small sampling of what is available. Other networks include Pinterest, Google+ and Tumblr. But, in looking at the stats, you can see if you are not on these sites, then you are missing out. We can help you develop a strategy to reach more people and potentially increase sales. Contact us here.
