Social media has become as ingrained in our daily lives as putting on our clothes in the morning. And every demographic of consumer is on it – scrolling, posting and engaging with brands and with each other. Savvy companies today are harnessing these platforms to promote to specific segments – and they’re wise to do so for many reasons. This post will share 20 social media stats that demonstrate why social media is the place to be, and offer some creative ways to approach marketing there.
For starters, you need to know where your consumers are; otherwise, you won’t know where to focus your efforts.
Having a presence on the correct social sites is crucial – and each offers its own unique benefits. We’ll touch on relevant social media stats demonstrating this right now!
1)There are 4.2 billion social media users worldwide, with a global penetration rate of 49%. Engaging on social media has become mission critical for brands. And “engaging” goes beyond sharing promotional posts. To truly standout, a brand needs to interact with their consumers. 79% of consumers expect a response in the first 24 hours after reaching out to a brand via social media. And with 90% of people buying from brands they follow on social platforms, staying on top of your communication skills is a must – or you chance losing consumers to the competition with faster response times.
2) TikTok was rated the most-downloaded app of 2020, and the second-highest for consumer spend after Tinder. This is opportunity packaged and tied with a bow for your brand. Consumers are spending time on TikTok – and not just dancing or doing make-up tutorials, they’re looking at brands and spending.
3) And then there’s the fact that roughly 50% of TikTok’s global audience is under the age of 34, with 32.5% aged between 10 and 19. For any company seeking to attract the attention of the younger generations, TikTok is the jackpot. Understanding which social media sites attract which generations is critical for targeting these demographics. Creating ads that target different segments requires finesse -and an understanding of the latest platform trends. For example, 48% of TikTok users have a funny bone, so sharing funny videos could be an “in” with this fickle crowd of youngsters. For example, PetCo hits the funny bone with this ad, which has over 11K plays.
https://www.tiktok.com/@petco/video/6978266680350887174?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
4) Switching gears to Facebook, which has an advertising audience of 2.14 billion, there’s plenty of room to stretch your advertising legs here! And Facebook is vast as it reaches beyond just the UK and US, in fact….
5) Almost 90% of Facebook’s daily active users come from outside the US/Canada. And the fastest-growing regions for Facebook are the Middle East and Africa. Knowing where your audience is talking is half of the battle. You don’t want to sing to an empty room – that’s a waste of time and money. For example, we can see below that our puppy brand is doing well in the U.S., but isn’t generating much buzz elsewhere.
6) But what works on one social media platform may be different from another. While TikTok has a high volume of Gen Z, 80% of Twitter users are affluent millennials. These are people with careers and families – not suffering college students. What works on TikTok may need to be adjusted here.
7) 93% of Twitter community members are open to brands getting involved, if done so in the right way. So, what’s the right way? Social listening tools can help you dial into just that. For example, we see an advertisement on Twitter by Petco. They’ve used humor and mention of popular influencers and pop stars BTS to grab the attention of consumers.
And that brings us to different types of advertising between the social media platforms.
8) Instagram has announced that half of their active users are checking out Stories on a daily basis. These quick and simple ads are effective in capturing your consumers’ attention, if you know what kind of content to promote.
9) And if you think you’ll be the only one advertising, think again. Social media stats revealed that 71% of all companies in the United States are already using Instagram, surpassing Twitter at 67%. This platform is obviously a battleground for brands. With a little social analytics, your brand can trump them all.
But – it’s also not all Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
10) Discord has 150 million monthly active users as of 2020. And 963 million messages are sent daily by its users. Your company could be on their lips if you know how to market effectively to this crowd of gamers. Gaming is ever expanding and unlike other trends it is loved by many generations, with 38% between the ages of 18-34, and 26% aged 34-54. So, for Discord may be a place to consider!
11) Reddit users average 21 billion screen views a month illustrating that they spend a large amount of time engaging on this platform. And this is an excellent opportunity as consumers want brands to respond to questions, join conversations, and talk about timely events – which is something Reddit is perfect for. Reddit is conversational by nature, giving brands an organic way to communicate with their consumers.
12) Reddit has a more intimate feel and is home to 130,000 communities. As a brand, finding a group specific to your niche is easy here. Take health and fitness for example, there was a 43% increase from 2017 to 2018 on this social forum. Discovering your consumers’ common interests can help you target your audience on this platform more readily.
13) Of course, what makes social media so accessible is that it’s on almost every consumers’ mobile phone. Cell phones have completely altered the way we do business, and now it makes posting to social media or responding to a consumer’s question easier than ever. Social media stats show that there are 4.08 billion active mobile social media users worldwide. This only highlights the need for brands to be on their toes.
14) And this access highlights the importance of using Advanced AI as more leading businesses rely on it for their roadmap to success. More than 9 in 10 leading businesses have ongoing investments in AI. It helps brand discover and create actionable content gathered from online consumer behaviors. And it allows companies to optimize their social media posts and drive engagements. If your brand isn’t doing this and others are, you’ll eventually feel it in your ROI.
15) And with consumer attention spans decreasing, it’s more critical than ever to capture the attention of social media users. In 2015, the average consumer’s attention span was eight seconds – one second less than that of a goldfish. That 8 second attention span is more like an 8 second filter of content they let in. So, you have a very limited amount of time to make an impact. You need to grab your consumers’ attention quick, and if you’re good at it, they ‘ll give you more than 8 seconds and may become lifelong fans. One way to win this attention and draw in your consumer is by partnering with an influencer.
16) 17% of the companies spend over 50% of their budget on influencers. But big influencers like Kylie Jenner are costly. This has paved the way for micro influencers as not every brand has that kind of budget. In fact, micro influencers are a better way to win relevant engagement rates. On Instagram, those with fewer than 1000 followers earn an engagement rate of 8%. For those above 1,000 but below 10,000, that rate drops to 4%. Anyone over a million followers, that engagement rate falls to just 1.7%. Even though the audience for the micro influencer is smaller, the rates are much higher – which is why so many people are opting for them.
17) The average time spent on social media is 145 minutes, or 2 hours and 25 minutes every day. This has gone up an entire hour, or 61% since 2012. This may not seem like a lot but that’s 10% of your day. With this number growing, and consumers socializing more online, shopping more online and over all living more of their life online – brands should be there as well. In fact, consumers expect them to be. And if you aren’t where they can find you, they’ll go to the next best thing.
18) 64% of millennials believe social media is effective for customer service, and 52% actively use social media to resolve customer service issues. Companies that pay attention to social media customer care, experience 92% customer retention. We see again and again that brands with a great customer service rate experience correspondingly high retention.
Consumers love to talk about their brand experiences, especially when a crisis arises.
19) 53% of consumers said they expect brands to respond to a crisis within an hour. That means you better be on social media like white on rice. Not only does this very simple act show you care but 90% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with a brand that responds well to crises. Take KFC for example, and the massive chicken shortage in 2018 that forced many KFC UK locations to close. In response, KFC ran an apology with a picture of a KFC bucket that had the brand’s letters rearranged to spell “FCK.” Underneath the letters, they put “We’re Sorry.” It went viral on Twitter and now 32% of people look fondly on how KFC handled the crisis.
Knowing what to post, when to post it, who to target and how to respond to negative feedback is tricky, but it’s made less so with the right social media intelligence. And it’s this tool that’s aiding brands everywhere – bringing us to our final social media stat.
20) 68 percent of business-to-business companies currently use social media for gathering intelligence. And for B2C, 59% are on the social media intelligence train. It has become non-negotiable ‘must have’ and the best way to make sure you’re targeting effectively, while getting the most return on your investment.
Are you sure your efforts are aimed in the right direction? How about your messaging? Is it right for the times, as well as for your intended audience? Don’t waste your time second guessing, reach out for a demo and sharpen your social media skills today!
