An interesting report was released by Experion Simmons regarding the use of Social Media in the US. The report defined “social media” as: “visiting social or professional networking sites, visiting photo or video sharing sites, visiting online forums or message boards or using social tagging or bookmarking at least once in the last 30 days.” Even with this comprehensive definition of social media, the widespread use of social media found in the study is impressive:
- 91% of online adults (129 million people) access social media per month. Broken down by age:
- 98% of online 18-24 year olds
- 82% of online 55-64 year olds
- 73% of those 65+
Of online adults, 58% visit Facebook monthly, which is significant, although it also shows that all of the above social media use isn’t solely from Facebook. (Although Facebook is clearly the dominant social media site.) The largest age group visiting Facebook once per month is 18-34 year olds at 73%. And those 50+ stands at 41%, up from only 33% in 2010.
Regarding time spent, Facebook users spend 20 minutes and 46 seconds average each time they visit. (I know I’ve been pulled into that time suck—once or twice today already!) Twitter users spend 0:12:41 average, and Google+ spend 0:5:45 average.
The study also found interesting results regarding Hispanic consumers: they are more likely to interact with brands, write reviews, and make recommendations than their non-Hispanic counterparts.
- 30% follow favorite brands, compared to 18% of non-Hispanic users
- 33% use social sharing sites to recommend companies or products, compared to 23% of others.
And finally, if you want an effective marketing campaign, you’ve got to have eblasts. To make your eblasts more powerful, mention Facebook. According to the study, “60% of brands that sent out an email with the word “Facebook” in the subject line averaged a 27% increase in traffic to their website the week following the email deployment.”
The study also covers access to Google+ weekly visits, the growing use of social media to communicate between parents and children on social media, where users visit after social sites, mobile and more. Download the full Experian Social Media Study.