Social media addiction statistics. Rating of general social networks

Briefly about the main thing

• 42% of Internet users across Russia use the social network VKontakte daily, and 78% among 18-24 year olds
• TOP 3 topics most interesting to social network users - humor, health, news

MOSCOW, June 2, 2017 The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) presents research data on the use of social networks. VKontakte and Odnoklassniki among social networks, proposed for evaluation, are the most frequently visited: for example, 42% of Russian Internet users use VKontakte almost daily (in youth groups - 78% among 18-24 year olds, 54% among 25-34 year olds), 27% - Odnoklassniki(among 60-year-olds and older – 40%) . In total, 61% and 54% of surveyed Internet users access the corresponding resources. 25% view Instagram at one time or another, Facebook pages and My world is scrolling through 20%. Twitter and Livejournal are the least popular: they are used by 11% and 7%, respectively. The most popular thematic communities and groups on social networks are humorous (viewed by 43%), health-related (41%), news about events in the country (41%). Also interesting are pages about food and cooking (36%), home and family (33%), travel (32%), sports (31%), science and technology (28%). The pages of territorial, professional and educational communities are scrolled least often (15%, 14% and 14%, respectively). Preferences vary across different socio-demographic groups: if men primarily read about sports (45%), cars (45%), science and technology (43%), then women read about health (54%), food and recipes (52%), family and children ( 46%). Among young people from 18 to 24 years old, the TOP-3 has the most interesting topics included humor (49%), sports (44%), science and technology (36%), and among older people - news (62%), health (49%), nutrition (46%). Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents are more likely to read about travel (54%), and residents of small towns are more likely to read about events in the country (40%). The Medialogy company has prepared a ranking of the most mentioned social networks in Russian media since the beginning of 2017. The leaders in the ranking are Facebook (470.7 thousand messages), VKontakte (420.7 thousand messages), Twitter (349.3 thousand messages), Instagram (281.4 thousand messages) and OK (57.4 thousand). messages). The initiative all-Russian poll by VTsIOM was conducted on April 20-24, 2017 at 130 populated areas in 46 regions, territories and republics of 8 federal districts of Russia. Sample size: 1600 people. The sample represents the population of the Russian Federation aged 18 years and older by gender, age, education, and type of settlement. multi-stage stratified, with step-by-step selection of households, using quotas for last stage selection. For this sample maximum size errors (taking into account the design effect) with a 95% probability do not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is personal formal interviews at the respondent’s place of residence. In addition to sampling error, survey data can be biased by the wording of questions and various circumstances that arise during fieldwork. Monitoring and analysis of publications in Russian media was carried out by the Medialogia company. The study was conducted using the Medialogy media database, which includes about 40,800 sources: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, news agencies, Internet media. Study period: January - May 2017.

We present data from regular research active audience social networks in Russia for May 2017. The study included data on social networks VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MoiMir and LiveJournal. The main focus is on the active (writing) audience, as we study social networks as a means of public communication and their influence on the formation of public opinion. The study presents data on the audience, age, gender and regional distribution of authors of social networks in Russia.

Social media activity by source type

Number of "speakers" authors for May 2017 amounted to 38 million, they were generated 670 million messages. The prevailing share of content is concentrated in social networks - 470,737 thousand publications, which is 70,2% of the total volume of mentions in social media, the share of microblogs is 11,7% of the total number of video resources - 10,8% .

Authors and posts

In the social network VKontakte recorded for the month 25,722 thousand authors and more 310,795 thousand messages. Instagram continued its growth trend: in May, 7,143 thousand. active authors. By volume public content there were no significant changes in the network - 71,733 thousand messages. On Twitter - published a month ago 78,372 thousand tweets from 1,171 thousand authors. On Facebook 1,953 thousand authors and 53,413 thousand public messages.

Statistics for each social network

IN CONTACT WITH

The gender distribution on the network is traditional: 58.4% of authors are female, 41.6% are male. The main age group – 37% – are authors aged 25-34 years. The second largest group is 18-24 years old (25.7%).

As for the geographical distribution of VKontakte authors, the highest level of penetration remained in St. Petersburg - 44.9%, in second place is the Murmansk region (30.26%), in third is Moscow (28.43%).

INSTAGRAM

The highest level of penetration was recorded in St. Petersburg - 13.66%, Moscow is in second place with an indicator of 10.91%, and the Sakhalin region is in third (10.14%).

FACEBOOK

Facebook has 1.9 million authors and 53.4 million posts. 58.9% of authors are female. FB authors are older than active VKontakte authors. In the prevailing age group (25-34) there are currently 37% of authors, the second largest group is 35-44, which includes 30.6% of authors. Over 45 years old - 23.5% of authors.

Moscow is in first place in terms of regional penetration: 7.73% of Muscovites publish posts and comments on FB. Moreover, almost half of FB authors are residents of Moscow (953,417).

In terms of geo-penetration, St. Petersburg is again in first place (2.28%), Moscow is in second, with a slight lag, and the Republic of Sakha is in third (1.5%).

MY WORLD

The gender distribution here is more even than in other networks: just over half – 54.4% of the authors are female. In MyWorld, only 8.7% of authors are under 25 years old. The largest group is 55 years and older (34.9%). The share of groups 35-44 and 45-54 is 21.1% and 21.4%, respectively.

Moscow is the leader in regional penetration – 0.25%. Sevastopol, Chelyabinsk region and St. Petersburg are slightly behind – 0.23%.

LIVEJOURNAL

There are 81 thousand authors in LiveJournal. Messages for May were indexed just under 3 million. 60.4% of the authors were male. 39.7% of authors are aged from 35 to 44 years old - this is the main age group of LJ. 31% of authors are 25-34 years old. Another 17.8% are 45-54 years old.

Comparison of social networks by gender and age of authors

LiveJournal and Twitter are still the only platforms where male authors predominate, with 60.4% and 55.4% respectively. VKontakte is the youngest authors. The main groups - 18-24 and 25-34 years old - received 25.7% and 37%, respectively. The authors of FB and LiveJournal are as similar as possible in age groups: authors from 25 to 45 years old are active here, but the prevailing groups differ - on Facebook it is 25-34 (37%), and on LiveJournal it is 35-44 (39.7%).

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS

“The main trend is that social media is growing more actively outside of social networks,” says Brand Analytics CEO Natalya Sokolova. - In social media, there is a growing trend of user-generated content due to the advent of the mobile and smartphone era, as well as due to new communication formats - instant messengers and story formats. Plus, we need to take into account the growth in media consumption due to the development of distribution of professional content in social media channels.”

1. Youtube. It has firmly established itself as the main source of information for schoolchildren. But he didn’t stop there. There is a noticeable increase in quality channels for everyone age groups and interests. Let's remember that last week Brand Analytics released a pilot rating of YouTube bloggers - the May top 20 by engagement. The results can be found.
2. Mobile. Mobility, as the main trend on the Internet, is also accelerating social media - the smartphone is ideal for creating multi-format user content.
3. Messengers. Telegram takes on a media and forum role - increasingly powerful channels from the media and bloggers, public chats in active target groups. WhatsApp has taken over the place of popular everyday public chats. Viber is a “campaign” for young people and the task of introducing e-commerce into instant messengers.
4. Media. The media are coming to social media - the emphasis is on real-time distribution of content directly “into the hands” of users.
5. UGC sites. Thematic platforms turned out to be the most convenient place for exchange user experience. Web 2.0 is more alive than ever.
6. Story format. The format of stories, which came from Snapchat to almost all social networks, is gaining momentum and accumulates trends in video, life, mobile and ease of communication here and now. The fastest growing format.
7. LiveJournal demonstrates not a landslide, but a steady decline in activity on the site itself, but still often acts as a source of information distributed and consumed on social media outside of LiveJournal.

The full version of the study, including ratings of authors and social network groups, is presented in the presentation and is available for review and downloading via the link.

Reference:

Message - any open (public) post - in status, on the wall, in groups, comments, etc. Messages in personal correspondence or in the “friends only” mode are not taken into account.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube top the social media rankings worldwide, but users in Russia (and other post-Soviet countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) often prefer regional replacements for these platforms.

And this difference in popularity may have great importance for companies that use such sites for advertising, as this can completely change marketing strategy(which is used in other parts of the world). In addition, social networks, the rating of which in Russian-speaking countries differs from the global one, can provide enormous opportunities for international communication. Currently, eight social networks are the most popular.

"In contact with"

VK (formerly known as VKontakte) is the most widespread social network in Russia these days, with more than 46.6 million visitors per month. Undoubtedly, this resource tops the ranking of social networks in the post-Soviet space.

There are many interesting opinions about this site, but it can best be described as a combination between Facebook and a data sharing service. Similar to Facebook, each user has a profile and can search for and add other users as friends to see their status updates, new photos and videos.

Along with these traditional functions, users can also download audio and video files of any kind and share these resources with other people. This has previously come under scrutiny as it has crossed legal lines from time to time, but latest reports show that VK is now working with major record labels. This made it possible to launch a subscription service that allows you to legally share media files. This is why VKontakte has been leading the ranking of social networks in Russia for several years.

"Classmates"

While VKontakte may be the most popular service among young users (aged 18-35 years), OK (originally Odnoklassniki) is more commonly preferred among social networks. This service has more than 31.5 million visitors per month, and higher percentage(69%) are women. This platform, by the way, was the first in Russia and, one might say, gave rise to such a phenomenon as social networks. The ranking of sites in this category will always remain incomplete without mentioning it.

Like VK, OK allows users to create profiles, search for friends, and share status updates and images. The main purpose of creating the platform is to communicate with classmates and friends with whom users may have lost contact many years ago, so the search parameters are quite detailed.

Additionally, the site has a feature that provides information about who has visited your page (whether or not you are their friend). To view the profiles of other users, there is an anonymity feature for which you must pay (to enable “Invisible Mode”).

"My world"

Perhaps the best generally accepted analogue of the Russian “My World” is Google+. Both of these services are extensions of the ISP Email(in the case of “My World” - mail.ru). "My World" has struggled to find its own unique niche on a broader level, but the network's popularity is not that great. However, more than 16.6 million people use this service every month to share images, music and videos, as well as to play games and meet new friends, which is why it is included in the ranking of social networks. The My World online search strategy contains several parameters that are not available in other platforms.

Facebook

Social networks, which have a high rating all over the world, have not bypassed the post-Soviet space. Even though Facebook is not the most popular site in Russia, its popularity has definitely begun to grow - it now receives more than 21.6 million Russian-speaking visitors per month. This is not surprising, since Facebook is constantly changing its platform to better meet the needs of users.

Analysts believe that one of the reasons why Facebook is becoming increasingly popular in Russia is business communication. According to some sources, more than 30% of business discussions in Russia take place on Facebook. Therefore it will not be surprising if this platform will eventually top the rankings

"Livejournal"

Livejournal is a blogging platform that has been around since 1999, but has not been used in much of the world since then. This trend is far from true in Russia, where more than 15.1 million users visit LiveJournal every month. This figure is more than half of total traffic site.

Twitter

Twitter is another classic social media site that works well in Russia. While it doesn't get as many unique monthly visitors as the other services on this list (about 7.7 million monthly visitors), it does boast a following of every user. So while Twitter may not be a mainstay for most Russian social media users, those who choose to use it do so on a large scale.

Rutube and YouTube

Rutube is essentially Russia's answer to YouTube - a social media platform focused on video sharing for content of all types. Although the service hasn't reached the same reach as YouTube, it has collected a lot of content from a variety of users.

Rutube hosts both licensed content and user uploads. The vast majority of downloads are in Russian. This high percentage of Russian content makes the platform an incredibly valuable resource for those trying to learn the language.

Instagram

The first social media platform on this list, Instagram, has become extremely popular in the past few years, and its popularity in Russia is no exception. Instagram is quickly moving up the rankings, and today has 12.3 million monthly users (of which 77% are young women).

This shift in popularity is largely due to the crossover between Instagram and other platforms where users can use great photo editing tools. This allows you to enhance and capture a photo and then post it on both Instagram and other popular social networking sites.

While Instagram's core features continue to be easy to access and use, there are several options for tools and third party applications, which most users don’t even know about. It is expected that this platform will soon top the popularity ratings of social networks in most countries.

Concluding this review, it is worth noting that the success of such unique social networks as VK and OK in Russia and neighboring countries may surprise those who are accustomed to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which have a complete monopoly in the world.

There is definitely whole line sites that target a specific user base, whether geographically (as in these examples) or based on demographics (age of users), benefit from sites that target a specific user base.

Communication on social networks has long become commonplace for modern users Internet networks. In the vastness global web people solve many issues, share their experiences, demonstrate joyful moments, follow the events taking place in the lives of their relatives and friends. This demand for social networks has not gone unnoticed by developers. software products. It’s not surprising, because everyone wants to promote their product, get a decent profit and universal recognition.

We present the rating of the most popular social networks that have a large audience of users in the world for 2017. In the ranking, I mainly refer to statistics from gs.statcounter.com, which tracks such sites as: Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Twitter, reddit, Digg, MySpace, NowPublic, iWiW, orkut, Fark, Delicious, VKontakte, Hi5, Yahoo! Buzz, Vimeo, Mixx, FriendFeed, Hyves, Bebo, Tuenti, Kaboodle, Odnoklassniki. To learn more about their methodology, go to.

Since some sites (for example, Odnoklassniki), taking into account their methodology, do not fall into the charts, the article will also use statistics for the Runet gs.seo-auditor.com.ru. Attention! Their statistics vary greatly. This is due to different methodology. The former measure social media usage based on page views (rather than unique visitors).

The second graph shows the numbers as of June 2017:

We see that the VKontakte indicator has dropped significantly. Interestingly, according to these statistics, Twitter took its place. See how the statistics changed during the year.

• Ukrainians.co
• Nimses.com
• WEUA.info

TOP popular social platforms in Russia

As of June 2017:

According to gs.seo-auditor.com.ru, whose methodology is different, the popularity figures as a percentage are:

The most popular social networks in Belarus

There are also two leaders in Belarus: VKontakte and Facebook.

Moreover, at the end of the year, VK lost to FB and they swapped places.

Statistics on the popularity of social networks in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's users spend most of their time on Facebook:

Moreover, VKontakte also lost a little position here at the end of the year:

Kazakh Internet users are consistently loyal to the video aggregator Youtube.

Figures and trends in the World

The permanent world leader in statistics gs.statcounter.com is Facebook again:

Pinterst ranks second and has actively begun to gain popularity, primarily due to its new opportunity.

Twitter is as always positively stable. Although he news feed much more attractive now.

According to the table, the number of network users around the world per month is:

As you can see, the leaders have a big lead.

Facebook

Almost 2 billion visitors per month.

The social network, founded by young businessman Mark Zuckerberg, is a confident leader among similar services. Every month about two billion people from different parts of the planet use this resource in for different purposes. Such demand among the world's population obliges Facebook to adapt to each user. Therefore, today there are more than 60 language versions of this web resource so that people from different countries have the opportunity to communicate with each other. Despite any vicissitudes and financial crises, Facebook is successfully developing, attracting everyone large quantity subscribers. And the founder of the Internet network, taking advantage of the growing popularity of his brainchild, never tires of donating the received cash for charity, thereby further winning the love of Internet users.

Twitter

(more than 300 million visits per month)

Interest in Twitter due to ease of use of this service, as well as the speed of display of messages. There is nothing easier than registering on a social network page and immediately getting into the thick of things, finding out last news, share your opinion with other people, etc. Twitter was founded two years later than Facebook, but is already confidently breathing down the back of the recognized leader. This social network is popular in many countries of the world, not only in the vast expanses of post-Soviet states, but also far beyond their borders.

Linkedin

(more than 100 million users per month)

This web-based system is especially in demand among businessmen. This love of entrepreneurs from all over the world can be explained quite simply: using this online resource, you can successfully promote your business, make useful contacts, and look for employees in different parts of the world globe, and also receive orders from partners living far from themselves. Here you can easily post your resume or job advertisement, find companies whose job profile matches your interests, and much more.

Pinterest

(approximately 150,000,000 monthly)

In this ranking of world leaders, Pinterest occupies a worthy position. Although, according to the number of Pinterest users in the 7th position in the table, it is quickly gaining popularity. And most likely, residents of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries will soon include this social network in the leading list, since it has sufficient potential.

Instagram

700,000,000 visitors visit Instagram every month.

The Instagram resource gained popularity thanks to the thoughtful management of Facebook owners. They were the ones who bought the rights to this social network and made it one of the favorites.

In addition to those already mentioned, Special attention I want to give more to others social services, which are included in some lists of the most popular social networks. It's about about the Youtube web resource (a billion registered users), which ranks second. In addition, it is worth mentioning VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, one of the most favorite communication platforms used by residents of the CIS countries. Now Ukraine is not included in their list, since the mentioned social networks are blocked by providers on the territory of the state; such a decree was signed by the president of the country.

It is also worth mentioning Viber, WhatsApps, Telegram and other social resources, which are present in various ratings.

A large selection of all kinds of social networks forces their owners to constantly develop, and users only benefit from such competition. The main thing is that the competition is fair and healthy, using only open (and legal) methods of fighting for a place in the sun. And consumers will decide for themselves which social network to give preference to.

Today, social networks are so firmly rooted in our lives that the composition of the top five most popular social platforms remains virtually unchanged from year to year. However, the penetration and use of these social networks varies depending on geography and demographic factors. Understanding these differences plays a big role when targeting specific audiences. Comparing the most popular social network, it is important to pay attention not to the number of registered accounts, but to the number active users. From the review you will learn which social networks are growing faster than others, and which are currently in decline.

The most popular social platforms

The chart, produced by analytics agency Statista, gives a clear picture of the number of active users (in millions) on the world's most popular social networks. Topping the list is Facebook. This can hardly surprise anyone. Facebook holds the majority of the market share with over 2 billion active users. In January 2017, the giant's closest competitor was WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook. Then he was in second place. Today, YouTube is in second place with 1.5 billion active users. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp take third and fourth place respectively.

They are followed by platforms, the majority of whose audience is located in the Asia-Pacific region. These are QQ, WeChat and Qzone (with more than 600 million active users). This shows that there are a number of popular social media in APAC countries. After them, we see a cluster of platforms popular mainly in the West - Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter.

What about in Russia?

In Russia, the penetration of social networks is estimated at 47%; 67.8 million Russians have accounts on them. According to Statista, YouTube is used most actively in the Russian Federation (63% of respondents), VKontakte takes second place - 61%. Global leader Facebook is only in fourth place with an indicator of 35%. Skype and WhatsApp dominate among instant messengers (38% each).

Social networks that are growing faster than others

Marketers usually don’t spend much time on SMM. Which social network should you concentrate your efforts on? Twitter, which amassed 313 million users between 2010 and 2017, has seen the slowest growth compared to its biggest competitors Facebook, WhatsApp and China's WeChat. Founded in 2013, Instagram had already surpassed Twitter in terms of audience size by 2014.

A new study from Statista shows that Twitter fell far behind its peers in 2017. It showed the lowest growth in monthly active audience, which was only 23 million from Q3 2015 to Q3 2017. Facebook, meanwhile, grew by 461 million.

How users interact with brands on social networks

Knowing how to behave and what posts to make on social media is also important, since it shapes the image of your brand and, as a result, encourages users to buy your products or, conversely, unsubscribe from your groups. Social media is increasingly being used as a customer service platform where customers, existing and potential, want answers to their questions in real time. A chart taken from a Sprout Social report shows that 48% of users can be persuaded to buy by quickly answering questions in a group. 46% respond positively to promotions, and 42% may choose a brand's product if its page contains educational content. 27% of surveyed users admitted that they would be willing to make a purchase if they were shown materials that are usually left behind the scenes.

Half of Sprout Social survey respondents said they would unfollow a brand's community if I posted content that they found offensive, and 27% said they would mark a brand and its page as spam and block it. That is why, to reach and engage your potential clients it is so important to publish relevant and interesting materials that resonate with you target audience.

Social networks with the most active audience

An important factor What influences how much time we should devote to SMM on a particular social network is the level of audience engagement. Here again, Facebook dominates, and also has the highest engagement over time, according to data from analytics firm comScore's study of a panel of US consumers.

Facebook success amaze. In addition to the social network itself occupying the top spot, other corporate-owned platforms also took second and third place. Facebook Messenger has a 47% penetration rate, with Instagram right behind it.

From the latest data from Pew Internet, shown in the chart below, we can see that Facebook also leads in the number of active audiences per day. 76% of users log into the social network every day, on Instagram this figure is 51%. Only 42% of Twitter users check it daily, which is almost half that of Facebook.

The average daily duration of use of social networks in the United States is 2 hours 1 minute; in Russia, users spend a little more time on social platforms - 2 hours 19 minutes.

Engagement rates in different social networks

Analytical marketing company TrackMaven analyzed 51 million posts various companies from 130 industries to find out which social networks have the highest engagement rates. The results showed that the absolute leader in terms of engagement per 1000 subscribers is Instagram. This is so much higher than other social networks that we had to create a separate chart to illustrate the difference between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

As you can see from the second graph, Facebook is significantly ahead of Twitter and LinkedIn. The reason for this is largely due to the fact that Twitter posts more because there is no algorithm to show content to only a small portion of the audience. Because of this, brands have to flood their feeds with posts to break through the information noise. This, in turn, reduces the response rate to publications. Below is the average daily number of posts per account on three social networks.

General statistics on social media usage around the world

Every year, WeAreSocial updates its comprehensive Global Digital Report, which compiles actionable data on social media around the world. From it you can find out how differently social platforms are used in different parts Sveta. It is surprising that Western countries are seriously lagging behind in the rate of penetration of social networks.

Below are the main conclusions of the studies.

• The number of Internet users in 2018 reached 4.021 billion people, which is 7 percent more than a year ago.
• The audience of social networks in 2018 totals 3.196 billion people - 13% higher than last year’s figure.
• Number of users mobile phones is 5.135 billion people, this means plus 4% compared to last year.

The numbers are growing rapidly, especially for active users of social networks with mobile devices— penetration level 39%, which is 5% more than in 2017.

If we talk about the structure of web traffic depending on the type of device, then the most traffic is generated by mobile users(52%, which is 4% higher than last year). Only 43% of all web pages are visited from desktops, which is 3% lower than last year.

Northern, Western and Southern Europe, as well as North America can boast of the most high level Internet penetration - 74%-94% of the total population use worldwide network. In Russia, 110 million people use the Internet—76% of the total population.

The growth in the global audience of social networks since January 2017 was 13%. The fastest growth in the number of users is observed in Saudi Arabia. Since January 2017, their number has increased by 32%, the global average is 17%. Other countries with the highest growth rates include India, Indonesia and Ghana. The reason for the jump was the development of technology, which made it easier for the population to access social platforms. Social networks grew the slowest in the UAE, South Korea and the UK -<5%. В России пользователей соцсетей стало на 8 826 000 человек больше (+15% к прошлогоднему значению).

Since Facebook has the largest share of users, it would be useful to know how the content you post will perform on the social network and what features to use to increase its reach. According to social network statistics, the average reach of a publication is 10.7%, with organic posts having 8% (organic reach in Russia is 11.3%), and for paid posts this value is 26.8% (27.4% in Russia) . Organic and paid Facebook posts have huge potential. It is important to target publications correctly in order to receive quality leads.

You can get a more complete picture of the state of the global digital market in 2018 by studying our review of the Internet 2017-2018 in the world and in Russia: statistics and trends, which we prepared based on the Global Digital 2018 study.

Popularity of social networks by country

The graph below from the GlobalWebIndex report, based on a survey of Internet users, perfectly reflects the popularity of various social networks by country. Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are among the top ten most active audiences on each social network, significantly ahead of the US, UK and European countries.

Of the four social networks presented (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+), Russians are the most active users of the video service. Twitter and Google+ are used relatively often by only 20% of our compatriots, and Facebook is regularly viewed by just over 40%.

Demographic statistics of social media use

As can be seen from the graph, different age groups have a similar pattern of social media use. This suggests that social networks have reached a stage of maturity where they can reach all demographic groups, regardless of age and gender. The exceptions are Instagram and Tumblr, which have younger audiences.

Strategies for interacting with social media audiences

According to The State of Social 2018 study, 96% of brands have a presence on Facebook.

Moreover, only half of the respondents have a documented SMM strategy. Large businesses are a little more responsible about this issue than small companies (60% said they have such a document).

When it comes to the types of content brands publish, images, links, and text lead the way. Even though video posts tend to get the most engagement, video content only comes in fourth. This is primarily due to the complexity of creating such materials.

At the end of 2017, Smart Insights, together with Clutch, conducted a survey among business representatives, in which they asked which social networks were of the greatest value to them. It turned out that among B2C companies Facebook is considered the most effective (93% of respondents), and most B2B companies prefer LinkedIn (93%).

The Value of Social Media for Brands in 2018

1. If you think that your target audience is not on social networks, you are mistaken.

Through social networks you can reach any audience, regardless of gender, age, social status. 98% of online consumers are registered on social networks, a fairly large part of them are adults 55-64 years old.

1. People devote a third of their time on the Internet to social networks.

The average user spends 2 hours 15 minutes a day scrolling through their feed and communicating on social platforms, and young people aged 16-24 spend almost three hours. If you do not consider SMM as a channel for attracting customers, then you are voluntarily giving up the attention of your target audience to your competitors.

1. Half of all social media users follow brand pages.

4 out of 10 internet users follow their favorite companies on social media, and a quarter follow brands when planning to buy something. People respond positively to such content, so an active presence on social media is of great value to companies.

1. Social networks are the main source of information for consumers.

People aged 16-24 prefer to look for information about brands on social networks rather than on search engines. A quarter of users in this age group admit that a large number of likes on a brand’s page can persuade them to make a purchase. In the group of 35-44 years old, 20% of respondents said the same. Social commerce can be considered one of the main channels for generating profit, which means it is important to diversify your efforts and not rely only on advertising.

1. Watching videos is a favorite pastime on social media.

Facebook is the largest social network in terms of number of users, but YouTube takes first place in terms of traffic and the reason is because of the video. Video posts receive the most active response, and that is why leading brands constantly publish videos on their pages.

The following materials were used in preparing the article:

1. Global Social Media Research Summary 2018 by Smart Insights
2. The State of Social 2018 report by Social Media Week
3. The Biggest Social Media Trends Shaping 2018 article published on the GlobalWebIndex blog
4. Social Networks Study: How social networks were used in 2017 by analytical agency Metricool
5. Global Digital 2018 report package compiled by WeAreSocial analytical agency

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