As 2018 starts to wind down, what does the social media landscape look like from a statistical perspective?
Social media monitoring service Awario has compiled the infographic below a range of credible sources.
There are some big numbers involved. Let’s unpack some of the things that jump out:
- There are 3.2 billion social media users worldwide (equating to 42 per cent of the global population). Hmmm, so much for social media being a fad! Social networking sites might come and go, and they’ll definitely change on a regular basis, but social media is definitely here to stay. The only thing we can count on is that more people are going to become even more social media savvy – will companies, governments and nonprofit organisations be able to keep up? It’s time for leaders and their organisations to ’embrace’ social, rather than just ‘do’ social.
- The total number of Facebook users has grown 15 per cent since the beginning of 2018. Wow, this statistic threw me! With all the problems Facebook has faced this year, especially around privacy, causing people to bail from the social networking giant, I would have thought it would record a net loss of users in 2018. Indeed, one poll found that 44 per cent of Americans aged 18-27 have deleted the Facebook app this year. Now, just because people are deleting the app doesn’t mean they’re leaving Facebook altogether, but given Millennials’ predilection for using smartphones, you could be forgiven for thinking Facebook was on the downward slide. I guess there’s every chance that older people are supplanting younger folk on the site. If this is true, it certainly puts paid to the myth that social media is a young person’s game!
- Everything about the YouTube statistics astound me. From the one billion hours’ of video content watched every day through to the fact YouTube is the most popular social site for US teens, more evidence that traditional TV networks, including cable, have their work cut out for them. One stat that doesn’t sit right with me is that 51 per cent of US marketers run YouTube video ad. Really?
- Lots of surprises with Instagram. Posts with location get 79 per cent more engagement! 400 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day. Eighty per cent of accounts follow a business on Instagram, which indicates plenty of upside for brands if they use the channel well.
- Google+ – who cares. Google is shutting it down anyway. Pity. It had potential, but then, Google has never worked out social media.
- Twitter still punches above its weight. Its user base of 335 million is dwarfed by Instagram and Facebook, but Twitter’s influence is still what sets the platform apart. Forty-six per cent of Twitter users are active on the site every day, which is consistent with other research I’ve seen.
- 2.8 billion comments are posted to Reddit every day. Let me say that again: 2.8 billion comments are posted to Reddit every day! Is Reddit the quiet giant of social media? Its user base is similar to Twitter’s, but 2.8 billion comments versus Twitter’s daily tweet count of 500 million is pretty incredible.
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