Social Media Fun Facts and Stats

Social media is constantly evolving and at shockingly high rates; these numbers prove that.

Over the course of the last few years, social media has made its way into virtually every aspect of our lives. As such, in this short period of time we have seen some unprecedented numbers when it comes to social media. Below are a few fun facts and figures as they relate to social media as a whole and by network.

Social Media

• Roughly one third of bloggers are mothers.
• There are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on Earth.
• 40% of people spend more time socializing on social networks than they do face-to-face.
• AllTwitter reports that every minute of the day:
  • 100,000 tweets are sent.
  • Over 680,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook.
  • 2 million queries are made on Google.
  • 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram.
  • Over $270,000 is spent online by consumers.
• 22.5% of time spent online is spent on social media networks.
• 70% of adults on social networks shop online.
• 53% of adults on social networks follow a brand.
• 57% of marketers say they have acquired a customer as a result of blogging.
• 44% of marketers say they have acquired a customer from Twitter.
• The use of social media has increased more than 350% since June 2006.
• 65% of traffic on Pinterest is from the United States.
• Blogs increase web traffic by 55% for companies.
• 35% of the comments on brand Facebook Pages are compliments.
• Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase.
• 90% of mobile searches lead to some sort of action.

Facebook

• Facebook users combined spend over 10.5 billion minutres on the social media network every day.
• Only half of all Facebook users have over 100 friends.
• People spend over twice as much time on Facebook as they do on Google every month.
• AllFacebook reports that in an analysis of over 60 Facebook marketing campaigns, 49 percent reported a return on investment of more than five times, while 70 percent had a return on investment greater than three times.
• Less than 0.5% of Facebook users engage with the brands they are fans of in a given week.
• 20% of Facebook have made a purchase as a result of an ad or post they saw on the social network.
• Half of all smartphones are connecting to Facebook every hour of every day.

Twitter

• There are over half a billion registered accounts on Twitter but only 140 million active users.
• 15% of adults user Twitter.
• 29% of the Twitter user base is between the ages of 18-29, the largest demographic on the network.
• Users aged 30-49 represent 14% of people on Twitter and 50-64, 9%.
• The average number of followers for any Twitter user is 27.
• A quarter of all Twitter accounts have no followers.
• 40% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet.
• 79% of Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand they follow.
• 67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from a brand they follow.
• 57% of businesses that use social media use Twitter.

LinkedIn

• 61% of LinkedIn users use the social media network as their primary professional networking site.
• 81% of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group.
• 82% of users are aware of ads available on LinkedIn.
• 60% of users on LinkedIn have clicked on an ad feature on the site.
• 90% of surveyed LinkedIn users find the site to be helpful.
• 61% of LinkedIn users are registered for the free version of the network.

 Mobile

• 10% of Internet usage worldwide is now done via mobile smartphones.
• Roughly one quarter of the world’s 4 billion mobile devices are smartphones.
• Nearly 8% of web traffic in the United States is mobile traffic.
• 29% of mobile users are willing to scan mobile codes (i.e. QR codes) to receive specials and promotions.
• 39% of consumers who leave a store without making a purchase are influenced by mobile.
• 91% of mobile access to the web is done for social networking purposes.
• Over one third of Facebook users and half of Twitter users access the social networks via their mobile devices.
• QR code scans increased 300% year over year from 2010 to 2011.
• 73% of smartphone users access social networks using mobile apps at least once per day.
• One in ten dollars spent on e-commerce in the United States is done on mobile devices.
• 87% of the world’s population subscribes to a mobile device.

Social Media for Business

• 27% of small and 34% of medium businesses are using social media for business (expected to reach over 75% in the next three years).
• MarketingMag reports that 25% of SMBs have no strategy and only 28% of small and 24% of medium businesses measure their ROI of social media activity.
• 83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a negative customer service experience – compared with 49% of everyone else.
• Of businesses using social media, 80% are using it to monitor and extract data related to competitors.
• Only 44% of customer questions on twitter are answered within 24 hours.
• 56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored – that’s much too high!
• 55% of consumers share their purchases socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites.
• 59% of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the site.
• 33% of Facebook users have purcahsed an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.
• 79% of Pinterest users are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on Pinterest.
• 64% of Facebook users have clicked on a Facebook ad.
• 87% of the Fortune 100 now use social media – with Twitter being the most popular social media network.
• 75% of the Fortune 100 are on Facebook.
• 50% of Fortune 100 companies have a Google+ account.
• 25% of Fortune 100 companies have a Pinterest account.
• Facebook is the number one social marketing tool for brands at 83%.
• On average companies respond to only 30% of social media fans’ feedback.
• 40% of young workers rate access to social media at work above receiving a higher salary!
• Over 50% of workers aged over 50 use social media every day at work.
• 94% of corporates use social media and 85% say it’s given their business more exposure.
• 74% of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week on social media.
• 65% of corporate marketers use social media to gain market intelligence.
• 70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter.
• 83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those companies that did make the effort.
• Only 26% of businesses regularly include a call to action in their tweets.
• 42% of marketers believe Facebook is critical or important to their business.
• Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing.
• 80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook.
• Facebook is responsible for 86% of social referrals, Pinterest 11% and Twitter 3%.
• Over 25% of Twitter users would consider contacting a business via the platform.
• 39% of companies do not track their social media responses at all, and 55% ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because they have no process in place to respond.

That’s a ton of information! Social media is growing more and more important to business every year. We are still at a stage where entry barriers are low and the benefits of using social media for your business are notable and impressive. The proof is in the numbers! Which of these statistics did you find to be the most impressive? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!