This post is a collection of stats collected over time and updated whenever necessary, all relevant to social media and specific applications. The data looks at reach, user profile, usage and marketing applications. This post is available in French here.
Updated December 9th 2009
Reach
- Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activity, beating personal email. 67% of users worldwide visit a community regularly, 10% of all time spent online is on social networks.
- 89% of Canadians use social networks regularly, the most important share in the world (comScore).
- By 2010 in the US, Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers — 96% of them are members of a social network.
- 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide, that’s 24% of the world’s population (InternetWorldStats.com April 2009)
- 67% of Internet users worldwide visited a social network in December 2008 (Nielsen, March 2009)
- 3 out of 4 Americans use social media technologies (Web-2.0 Forrester 2008)
User Profile
- The majority of users are under 45, earn less than $100 000 in household income. There is a female skew. (HitWise US August 2009). Trafic on social networks is up 44% vs August 2008.
- 1 newlywed couple in 8 (2008) in the US met on a social network.
- Gen Y and Gen Z consider email a thing of the past. Boston College stopped distributing email addresses to new students in 2009.
- 75% of European Internet users are regular social network users (Comscore)
- 96% of Gen Y is a member of a social network.
Usage
- Gen Y in the US spends 33 hours a month on social networks vs 31 hours with their email (JDPower 2009 Teens and Careerist report).
- Social media surpassed porn as # online activity.
- 18 minutes is the average time spent per visit on a social network site – HitWise US August 2009
- 17% of total time spent online is on social networks (Nielsen August 2009). In mid 2008, social networks represented 10% of all time spend online worldwide – this category didn’t existe 3 years ago (Nielsen, March 2009)
- ComScore sais Russia has the most engaged social network audience: visitors spend an average 6.6 hours and consult 1,307 pages per month — Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network in Russia.
- A study by the US Department of Education revealed that online students performe better than “in class” students on average.
- 1 in 6 university students (or higher) are enrolled in an online programme
- What happens in Las Vegas stays… on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
- 45% of Americans online used social networks in September 2009 (vs 11% in April 2009), 19% update the status in real time (PEW)
- Time spent on social media growth 3x faster than total online time spent (Nielsen 2009)
- 1 in 4 searchs of the Top20 brands worldwide land on user generated content, 1 in 5 land on brand generated content.
Marketing and brands on social networks
- 50% of marketers will use social networks for marketing purposes in 2010 (Center for Media Research)
- Highest value social tools according to US Marketers (Unisfair):
- 26% LinkedIn
- 23% Facebook
- 17% Twitter
- 3% RSS
- 1% Digg
- 6% other (including YouTube, blogs…)
- Top 3 marketing benefits of Web 2.0 use are (McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey”):
- Increased marketing efficiency (52%),
- High client satisfaction (43%), and
- Reduced marketing costs (38%) .
- 75% of Marketers plan to increase their spend on social networks in 2010 (followed by SEO 51%, Email 49%, virtual events 48% and online advertising 28% (Unisfair). Top3 priorities are :
- client acquisition (60%),
- client retention and engagement (48%)
- Thought leadership (45%)
- 93% of users believe companies should be present on their social networks (Cone septembre 2008) – 85% believe they should also interact while they’re there (talk & listen)
- 64% of marketers use social networks 5 hours a week during campains, 39% spend 10 hours or more per week.
- 25% of search results on Top20 brands worldwide are links to user generated content online.
- 24% of Top25 US daily newspapers are seeing dramatic drop in circulation because we no longer look for news, the news finds us.
- Companies that have success on social networks behave more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy — they listen first, then they sell.
- Companies that have success on social networks behave more like party organisers, aggregators and content suppliers than traditional advertisers.
- 84% of companies operating a social media program don’t mesure ROI (Mzinga : Social Software in Business, sept.2009)
- SMBs have found success on social networks : +850% leads
- 47% of users believe comments & reviews from other users on a brand are important vs 40% in 2007 (BIA Kelsey Group)
- 16% of users use social networks to find where to shop locally (BIA Kelsey Group)
- 5 in 10 social media tools are used by more than 50% of brands – 86% of Facebook fan pages
- 94% of companies in the US will spend on social media despite the recession
- 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI (only that)
- Ford spend 25% of it’s marketing budget on social media
- 37% of GenY were aware of the new Ford Fiesta through social networks before it was officially launched.
- Ford is the only American auto manufacturer that didn’t request government aid.
- 71% of companies plan to spend 40% more on social media next year :
- low cost marketing
- get traction
- we HAVE to do it
- What is the cost of doing nothing?
- Can you afford to take that risk?
- 23% of SMBs in the US have used Social Media in the past year (BIA/Kelsey)
- 46% of users have expressed themselves positively about a brand on a social network (eMarketer May 2009)
- 35x more efficient than banners (avg ctr 7% vs 0.5%), 2x more efficient than email (ctr 3.9%) (SocialMediaTodayBlog.com)
- For more on measuring ROI in social media : “84% of Social Media Programs Don’t Measure ROI” by Christina Warren
The stats above and the videos “Social Media Revolution” and “Social Media ROI: Socialnomics” demonstrate clearly that social networks and social media are not a fad, but a fundamental change in the way we communicate among ourselves.
RSS
- 45%of companies say RSS is the 3rd most useful social tool. (McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey”)
Facebook
– updated Dec. 5th 2009
LinkedIn
– updated Dec. 5th 2009
Wikipedia
Technorati and the blogosphere
– updated Dec.1 2009
YouTube + Video
– updated Dec.9th 2009
Twitter – quick facts
– updated…
Delicious + Digg
Flickr
MySpace – quick facts
– updated…
Other social networks to discover:
- friendfeed.com – converge your many conversations on Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more into 1 place.
- tumblr.com – blog / sharing plateform – publish your thoughs, posts, citations, photos, videos, chat, audio… & integrate your feeds from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.
Mobile
- Blackberry’s Tour trackball tech problems lead to a 50% return rate
- 53% of people click on mobile ads (MIXX Canada)
- 20% of American kids 8 years old own a cell phone, 33% of 9 year olds, 49% at age 10, 61% at age 11 and 76% at 12! (Nielsen Mobile Kids Insights Q1 2009)
- 85 000 apps are available on iPhone, less than 10 000 for Google’s Android, roughly 3 000 for Blackberry. (Online Video Insider)
- 80% on mobile web use is done on an iPhone. (Online Video Insider)
- Less than 1 in 5 American owns a smartphone. (AdWeek)
- Pizza Hut generated over $1M in orders via its iPhone app (AdWeek)
- 18% of users have search a local product/service vs 11% that have searched beyond local region. (BIA/Kelsey ConState)
- 3.8 billion users in 2009 (there were 750 million in 2000) – TV doesn’t reach 1 billion worldwide… (Agent Wildfire)
- 70% of people in China, 59% in Hong Kong and 54% in Taiwan couldn’t live without their mobile device (Media Asia)
- 50% in Taiwan, 49% in Hong Kong and 44% in China find there’s already too much advertising on their mobile device (Media Asia)
- 1 billion cell phones will have access to the Internet in 2010 (IDC)
eCom / Classifieds
- Craiglist generates more traffic than eBay or Amazon (individually). eBay has over 16,000 employees, Amazon 20,000 and Craiglist = 30.
- 90% of online retailers in the US plan to add a social media component to their site in 2009 (Internet Retailing, Feb 2009)
- Social network users spend 54% more than average on eBay.
Traditional Media Performance Indicators
Inspired among many sources by the Tweets of TomTsinas, Jake Hird‘s blog and Erik Qualman (Search Engine Watch).
