Staggering Facts About Social Media

The proliferation of social media sites has changed the dynamics of the Internet and how people do business, probably for good.

As a writer and entrepreneur, you cannot afford to ignore social media. It is a powerful tool for sharing information, networking, socializing, building relationships and increasing awareness, visibility, traffic and sales online.

Here're staggering facts about social media you should know, particularly if you plan to leverage the media to market and promote your writing, business or services online.

 

Facebook

 

Did you know that about half of the over 0.5 billion Facebook users worldwide log in to their Facebook account at least once a day? Moreover, the average Facebook user spends about 55 minutes a day on the site, according to IACP Media Center for Social Media. This average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 groups, pages and/or events. Over 300,000 of those users use the translation application to translate Facebook into more than 70 other languages.

 

Twitter

 

Did you know in 2008 only 5% of the population had ever heard of Twitter and much less were using the social media for marketing? As of 2011, approximately 190 million tweets are written each day.  You could fill a 10 million-page book with the amount of tweets sent in one day, according to Twitter's calculations. Even more interesting, 80% of tweets occur on mobile devices. You should probably have a mobile website or blog, if you are planning to use twitter to market and increase your web traffic and sales.

 

Google+

 

Did you know that in just two weeks Google+ had reached 10 million users although it had not been officially released to the public? Google+ was developed under the code name “Emerald Sea.” The name represented the opportunity that Google+ presented of blowing up and sailing to staggering heights of social media success or drowning in the sea of existing social media sites. It appears the site took off on the right course judging by the positive performance and tremendous growth it has had.

 

Pinterest

 

Did you know Pinterest is the fastest ever independent site in history to hit the 10 million unique US monthly visitors benchmark? In 2012, the site generated more traffic referrals to websites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. You probably shouldn't overlook Pinterest in your social media marketing efforts anymore, if you aren't already using it.

 

YouTube

 

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? YouTube is available in 43 languages across 25 countries. According to IACP Media Center for Social Media, about 48 hours of YouTube video is uploaded every minute. 500 tweets that are sent on twitter every minute contain a YouTube video. You would have to live approximately 1,000 years to watch all the videos on YouTube, as of 2010. You can just imagine how many more years you would have to live to watch all videos on YouTube today.

 

LinkedIn

 

Did you know LinkedIn members come from over 200 countries and represent every continent? More than half of LinkedIn members live and or work outside the U.S. Australia alone has more than one million LinkedIn members. Every second two new LinkedIn members join the platform and executives of all Fortune 500 companies can be found on the social platform. How's that for a powerful social media?

 

Overall social media marketing

 

Did you know people who follow a specific brand on social media sites like Twitter are more than two times more likely to make a purchase from the company than if they found the website via the search engines? This stat alone reveals the power of social media referrals for businesses and explains why you should not overlook social media.