Common reactions to the facts we’re about to share include:
“No way!”, “Really?”, “These can’t be true.”, “You’re NOT serious?”
…and so on. While these social media marketing statistics are so remarkable they may be difficult to believe, they’re absolutely true.
7 Reasons You Need to Be Social
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Despite research and statistics that prove its worth, social media marketing still gets overlooked as a valuable method for increasing brand awareness, generating leads, and increasing profits. Let’s talk about why that’s just plain wrong. -
Reason #1 “As of 2018, there are 3.196 billion people using social media on the planet,” according to Hootsuite. That’s a LOT of people. And not leveraging the platforms that this huge population is undoubtedly using every day is a big mistake.
- Reason #2 Think there isn’t any room for social media to grow? Hootsuite begs to differ, stating that, “Seventy percent of people use social media daily in North America, but social media penetration is still at 42 percent globally.
- Reason #3 People spend a lot of time on social media. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but when you put it into numbers, it’s a bit baffling. The latest globalwebindex report states that, “On average, people around the world spend two hours and 15 minutes every day on social media, which is one out of every three minutes spent online.”
- Reason #4 People want to connect with others like themselves, which social media makes possible; and makes it easy to do. According to a recent survey from Curalate, “Fifty percent of US consumers say user-generated content—images and video from satisfied buyers—makes them more likely to buy a product from a brand’s social media channels."
- Reason #5 It’s not always easy to see the correlation between social media marketing and sales. However, Curalate says, “76 percent of U.S. consumers have purchased a product they’ve seen in a brand’s social media post,” which is awesome, but we don’t see that in conversion rates because, “65 percent of these people purchased the product at a later date,” and “20 percent of them bought in-store, meaning social is sending foot traffic to brick-and-mortar.”
- Reason #6 It’s hard to debate that video is a big deal right now, and YouTube is not a newcomer to the game. But, it’s still worth reiterating that the attention garnered by YouTube is significantly greater than television advertising. A recent Advertising Attention Research Experiment by Ipsos and Google indicates that, “45 percent of TV ads receive attention, while paid YouTube mobile advertising receives 83 percent.”
- Reason #7 People use social media for several different reasons. According to Hootsuite, the top reasons given for using social media are as follows:
- “To stay in touch with friends (41 percent)
- To stay updated on current events (40 percent)
- To fill up spare time (39 percent)
- To find entertaining content (37 percent)”
It’s easy to see how all of the above activities could account for a significant amount of time in a social media user’s life. And, another top reason for using social media is that they want to buy stuff. Social media is a great way to research products and companies to determine where to buy what.
What the Numbers Mean
What do these statistics mean for your business? They mean you can get more out of your social media marketing efforts than you think, simply by showing up to the game. Are you ready to play? Contact us today.
