Which social media channels should you use for your business? Where is your target audience and how can you reach them? These are some of the questions that business owners typically struggle with. In this quick tips episode, Mari-Liis Vaher talks about the most popular social media channels and shares some interesting statistics from the DIGITAL 2022: GLOBAL OVERVIEW REPORT.
Business owners often ask us which social media channels they should be on? Should I be on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, something else? Where is my target audience? How can I reach them?
And we understand the struggle. There are so many social media channels available and there are so many people active on social media! In fact, around 4,6 BILLION people are active on social media globally - that is almost 60% of the population. So you can only imagine the amount of data and information that is published on social media every day and how much noise there really is. It is estimated that on average people spend about 2,5 hours on social media every day around the world.
So, standing out in such a crowded marketplace is almost mission impossible. That is why you need to be very clear with what you put out there - you cannot expect to communicate to everybody and reach everybody. Target a very specific group of people with your communication. Don’t be afraid of narrowing down your audience - with BILLIONS of people on social media, even narrow audiences can be huge.
So, let's look at some key statistics about social media:
- First of all, before you dive into any social media channel. Think - is this the best way to reach my audience? Maybe instead of just posting regular updates on Facebook, you should be creating educational content on YouTube. For example, about 46% of people aged 16-60 worldwide go to online video as a source of learning every week. Or perhaps, you should consider creating a podcast instead as around 20% of people aged 16-60 listen to podcasts every week? By the way, around 20% also listen to audio books every week.
- When we talk about social media, there are some interesting statistics to consider. For the past 10 years, every year social media usage has gone up about 10%. The most active social media users are people up to 50 years old. The usage is highest in North America and North Europe where more than 80% of the population is active on social media. Also, younger people tend to spend more time on social media compared to older age groups. Another thing to keep in mind is WHY people use social media. The most popular reason is to keep up with friends and family. This is followed by just wanting to fill spare time and to read news. It is interesting that around 27% use social media to find inspiration for things to do and buy - this can be your opportunity to spread valuable information about what you do and why you differ. By the way, 23% of people say they go to social media to see the content from their favourite brands - this is again an opportunity for you to use social media as a way to build a community of loyal fans.
- When we look at the most popular social media channels then number one is still Facebook with 2,9 billion users. However, be aware that Facebook’s growth over the past years has been pretty slow. The same goes for YouTube which is number two with 2,5 billion users. Instagram has around 1,5 billion users and TikTok has 1 billion users. By the way, TikTok’s growth has been crazy in the last three years. It has doubled its users every year. Another channel that has been growing a lot is Twitter with almost 400 million users in 2021. LinkedIn - the B2B platform for networking and recruiting - has reached 750 million users.
- When we look at the time that people spend on different social media channels then number one is YouTube with an average of almost 24 hours per month spent on the app. This is followed by Facebook and TikTok with around 19 hours spent every month on both of the apps. So, video truly is king of all content! But before you decide which social media channel to choose, make sure to find more specific statistics about your region. Most channels publish this information openly, so just Google “channel name + country name + statistics”.
If you’re wondering where Mari-Liis got all these statistics from, then they are from DIGITAL 2022: GLOBAL OVERVIEW REPORT. It is a report with 300 pages and includes interesting information about internet and social media usage globally as well as nationally. So we definitely recommend you to check it out!