3D Statistics Columns

Businesses Love Statistics

Social media statistics are being poured over by marketing companies and major brands every day in hopes of understanding how businesses can best use the powerful, often untapped, potential of social media marketing. Two recent online articles presented some fascinating social media stats. I have pulled from both Jeff Bullas’ article for Yahoo Business and an article by Shea Bennett for Media Bistro, which includes a nice looking and very interesting infographic.

My 2 Cents

I have just a couple key takeaways I want to share before listing my favorite social media stats. As I think about how these statistics relate to my clients’ businesses and social media marketing, I notice two things:

  1. Businesses who early on adopted a smart social media marketing strategy were ahead of the curve, and they’ve gained new customers because of it.
  2. Social media marketing is now well beyond “if” and is all about “how” for businesses, which means those companies who have enjoyed being the first (or only) business in their sector using social media need to stay aware of changes in order to keep ahead of competition. The knowledge gap is narrowing on how to use these networks for marketing purposes.

Interesting stats from the infographic:

  • 50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media
  • Posts from 1 PM to 4 PM result in highest user engagement
  • 68% of Google+ users are male
  • 80% of Pinterest users are female
  • Tweets with 100 characters received 17% higher engagement than longer tweets
  • 34% of marketers have generated leads from Twitter

Interesting stats from the Bullas article:

  • Mobile internet access is up 60.3% in 2 years
  • Older users are catching on in a big way
  • Facebook passed over 1.1 billion monthly active users
  • Twitter is the fastest growing social network with 44% growth in the last 9 months
  • 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month – twice the number as May 2012
  • YouTube reaches more 18-34 US adults than any cable network
  • Google+ is now the 2nd largest social network in the world
  • 2 new users join LinkedIn every second

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