Social Media and its importance

(Image from statisticsbrain.com)

The whole “Social Network” phenomenon is ever changing. This not only relates to the companies that come, Facebook, and go, Myspace.com, but also the demographics of people who use it, the numbers who use it, how its usage is spread across the world, even the make-up of the audience for the different social media sites. If the numbers are to be believed there are hundreds of millions, even billions of people using sites from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube. Are we living in a global village? From a size perspective maybe.

From a survey done by marketingfacts.com it found that in May 2013 it found in the United States alone that “Nearly three-quarters (72%) of online US adults were using social networking sites as of May 2013, up from 67% in late 2012, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project." This equates to hundreds of millions of people. The demographic of this is quite interesting and is on the website. The highest group is women and aged between 18- 29, educated and earning less than $30,000 a year and living in an urban area. Please read more at http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11514/who-uses-social-networks-age-race-gender-and-income-breakdown#ixzz2svFIoDVv.

When we look at world in total, the site statisticbrain.com throws up some amazing facts. It makes for very interesting reading. Please see below.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

Per the site the top county using social networking is Israel with 11.1 hours on average per month, while the United States only comes in at 7.6 hours. The statistics are surprising in that what is classified as “engaged” countries in social networking there are very few western countries i.e. the United Kingdom, the big countries of Europe. The big users are countries such as Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, Columbia and even Chile. So size doesn’t actually equate to usage volume. One would think the USA would be on top of the chart because it is so technologically advanced and its population in general is sophisticated and plenty of disposable income to buy devices to use social media. But no, per the statisticbrain.com website Israel leads it.

When we talk about a global village, and one unified group we have to remember that social media can be different in countries. For example in China there are many different sites used by Chinese users, maybe because of censorship laws, but even saying that these sites accommodate local cultural needs. Please check out link to these sites at business insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/a-quick-guide-to-chinas-social-networks-2013-10. The US social media sites dominate the rest of the world in general, i.e. Facebook, YouTube etc. but within these countries the demographics will change from country to country. What ages dominates Facebook in Israel, maybe totally different in Russia for example. What is the salary ranges of people using Instagram in Chile as opposed to France. What are the subject’s people talk about on Facebook in Australia as opposed to Peru. All these statistics show different interests at work, different cultures in place. This information is also important from a financial standpoint as it is very important to advertisers in these countries who can make advertisements country specific and user specific within those countries. A very interesting site that gives stats per country can be found at the following link; http://www.mikekujawski.ca/2012/05/01/why-internet-users-and-social-media-users-are-now-essentially-the-same-thing/

So determining the importance of social media is hard to judge. Is it just to do with its users and the fact that we all may have a common point of interest in the way we communicate and group ourselves or is to do with the number of users and this is what the phenomenon is based on? Depending on what people are doing on social media size can be important. People can be part of large communities on Facebook for example, they can be advertising or selling things, the number of hits a video gets on YouTube is a declaration of its popularity, the size of your following on Twitter is all so important and quoted regularly in the traditional media. Size of a social media sight and its users is all so important to advertisers and a way of determining the importance of it in the world. The IPO’s of Facebook and Twitter emphasize how important size is in valuing these companies. But in saying that, the people who use social media are important as well. People are the life blood of social media, they provide the interest in it, they drive these sites forward technologically, and they spread the message about them. The people who use social media can influence popular debate, trending on Twitter, for example, is monitored and taken notice of by the relevant parties concerned. It is a fine line as to what we use to judge social media’s importance.