The ‘new wave’ of Social Media has been around for the better half of a decade now and we’ve all admittedly had our hands dipped in the cookie jar at some point. I’ve taken the initiative to ask the basic questions typically outspoken by an inquisitive child: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? And here’s how the cookie crumbles… To no surprise Facebook was by far the most used Social Media platform with over 1.2 BILLION active users.
- 250 Million of which, use it from their mobile device.
- Most users are Women aged 18-29.
So, who is the “average” Facebook user? Well according to a study carried out by Buffer: “it’s a young, 25 year-old woman, living in a big city, with a college degree and a household income of more than $75k a year.” Considering that Facebook initiated as a University/College social networking platform it is to no surprise that the average user is (literally) educated to that Degree. [field name=iframe] Although there is a decline on the levels of activity for the average user, compared to it’s prime dating back in 2011. Twitter on the other hand boasts a steady incline of active users, with 5,700 tweets happening every second.
|
COUNTRY |
% OF USERS |
|
United States |
50.99 |
|
United Kingdom |
17.09 |
|
Australia |
4.09 |
|
Brazil |
3.44 |
|
Canada |
2.92 |
|
India |
2.87 |
|
France |
1.76 |
|
Indonesia |
1.43 |
|
Iran |
0.88 |
|
Ireland |
0.85 |
Without a doubt the most active users are based in the United States, but I wanted to take it a little further. From traveling around Europe and working with clients based in the Middle East, I found that a LOT of people knew what Twitter was about, and I was often told “It’s mainly for chatting with your friends and making jokes, where as Facebook has too many people, like family, so it takes away some of the fun.” Twitter is often described as “a platform where you can share thoughts with complete strangers” but having your friends actively ‘Tweeting’ too can create a more enjoyable experience. So, looking at Twitters usage around the globe, in comparison to the active internet users in the corresponding country, research carried out by PeerReach found some outstanding results. Saudi Arabia actually had the highest percentage of Twitter users relative to its online population. In fact, a full 32 percent of Saudi Arabia’s online population uses the San Francisco-based microblogging service. None of the top five countries in PeerReach’s study of Twitter were English-speaking countries. The U.K. came in sixth place and the U.S., Twitter’s home country, came in eighth, though that may have a lot to do with how much of the U.S. population is on the Internet. Another immensely popular social media platform is Linkedin – A corporate Social Networking site with 259 Million active users. The facts: Two people join LinkedIn every second. – Yes, that means by the time you finished reading that sentence 6 more users have signed up.
- 84.4% of LinkedIn Users access the free account.
- 15.1% of LinkedIn Users use the pay account.
- 0.5% of LinkedIn Users are not sure what version they are on –
Brilliant - 79% of Linkedin users are aged 35+
- Primary use is to build up a professional network.
- 40% of users check their Linkedin daily.
Linkedin saw 4500 new members within it’s first month of activity. Users utilize the platform to build contacts, post content, promote their business as well as projecting their own personal brand. Here’s the Linkedin penetration percentages demographically organised by country.
|
# |
Country |
Users |
Penetration |
|
1. |
92765066 |
29.90% |
|
|
2. |
23672833 |
2.02% |
|
|
3. |
15474220 |
7.69% |
|
|
4. |
13973858 |
22.41% |
|
|
5. |
8695401 |
25.82% |
|
|
6. |
6417327 |
9.91% |
|
|
7. |
5963924 |
9.88% |
|
|
8. |
5364899 |
11.54% |
|
|
9. |
5313679 |
4.72% |
|
|
10. |
5138061 |
23.88% |
|
|
11. |
4553535 |
27.36% |
|
|
12. |
3956431 |
0.30% |
|
|
13. |
3367766 |
8.15% |
|
|
14. |
3049391 |
6.90% |
|
|
15. |
2936070 |
5.99% |
|
|
16. |
2771151 |
3.39% |
|
|
17. |
2734633 |
3.51% |
|
|
18. |
2614214 |
1.08% |
|
|
19. |
2215019 |
13.23% |
|
|
20. |
2123499 |
1.51% |
In the top 20 it is to no surprise that the BRIC countries are all present, with India and Brazil in the top 3. What are BRIC countries you ask? “In economics, BRIC is a grouping acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development.” -Trustworthy Wikipedia As are the MINT countries: “MINT is a neologism referring to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey.” – Wikipedia of course In diluted terms, with business development occurring across the globe, there is a direct correlation with the active
users on Linkedin with the countries of topic. As business grows, so does the level of active Linkedin users associated to that growth. After all, there is no rivalled professional platform to provide services of a similar nature. But, WHY LinkedIn? “Everyone’s on Facebook” Upon asking Linkedin users who engage in other Social Networking websites, the bottom line was down to the fact that people didn’t want to share “too much” information. In the eyes of professionalism, giving people access to your Facebook page could open the doors to all sorts of distasteful content; from Margaret’s Hen Party pictures to Gary and Kevin posting on your wall about how you made a fool of yourself at Dave’s 30th Birthday party. It’s just not… Necessary. With Linkedin you can keep it strictly professional, you are in control of the content you put up. One picture, a summary and an overview of your experiences, thats it. No embarrassing facts (unless you’ve been unemployed for a while). And there you have it, that is pretty much everything in a nutshell. Enough to keep you thinking – until next time. I’m off to Linkedin, see you there?
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