Social Media Power & Potential For Business www.moneymike.com /articles/social-media-business/
Social media has moved into the big leagues of marketing now. Actually they are dominating the big leagues at this point. Looking at all of the social networks across the board, Facebook is still standing tall in the front of the pack. Google+ which tried to sneak up behind Facebook a few years back seem to be floundering still near the back of the social media pack. There aren’t many businesses that take Google+ seriously enough to advertise or post regularly there. This is really bad news for Google as they sunk over half a billion dollars into developing the platform. The rumors that are circulating is that Google intends to break up their Google+ platform but continue to offer the photos feature as well as Hangouts. Times are changing… The most significant trend over the past couple of years has been that free marketing has not migrated into “Pay to Play” marketing. Gone are the days of the free ride on social networking. Now if you want to do any type of marketing you will need to pay up first. Another significant trend has been the shift in social media due to the popularity of chat networks like Snapchat and Whatsapp with the younger generation of social players. The younger sector certainly doesn’t want to hang out where their parents do, on Facebook, so they have flocked in droves to these chat networks. As a matter of fact, 3 of the top 5 social platforms are now instant chat services. Recent Trending Google called this one with their latest demand for mobilization of all web pages. Everything is going mobile in 2015. There is good reason for this. Of the 7.5 billion people on earth there are 3 billion internet users. Almost 2.1 billion users own social media accounts. 3.65 mobile users use smartphones and tablets to access the internet. Nearly 1.7 billion people on earth have active social media accounts. With China and Russia creating their very own social media networks, like Qzone, Twitter, Instagram and Google+ should be looking over their shoulders so they can watch as these social networks sail past their own user engagement. 1/4
Mobile Social Not every country has been able to enjoy the luxury of internet like the Western worlds have. But now the mobile wireless networks have made it possible for many more people to experience the internet and social media. For instance, Nearly 72% of all web traffic occurs from a mobile phone. Globally there are nearly 1.65 mobile social accounts. In Eastern Asia alone there are 561 active mobile social accounts. Facts about Facebook You may pick on Facebook because they are the leader in the social network scene, but in reality they are the greatest business model when it comes to testing new ideas. Look at these facts. 47% of all internet users have a Facebook account. There are nearly 1.4 Facebook users across the globe. Mobile advertising accounts for 75% of Facebooks revenue. There are 4.5 billion likes generated on a daily basis. Facebook video has now surpassed YouTubes direct uploads. Facts about Twitter Twitter is a great network to use to create brand awareness. Look at their statistics. There are nearly 284 million active Twitter users. Over 88% of their users view Twitter on mobile. There are more than 500 million tweets generated per day. Facts about Google+ Though they had a late start in life, Google+ still made it to the party. Google+ was a whopping half billion dollars to design and develop. They boast 363 million users across their network. They generate over 5 billion +1 hits a day. 2/4
Facts about Instagram 53%of social media users aged 18-29 have an active Instagram account. More than 70 million photos and videos are uploaded on a daily basis. They boast a whopping 300 million users. Facts about Pinterest The ever visual virtual pinboards on Pinterest attract a female centric audience. There are more than 70 Million users on Pinterest. Of those users, over 80% of them are female. Of those users, at least 88% have bought a product they have pinned. Facts about LinkedIn LinkedIn started in 2002, making it the godfather of business social media networks. They boast 347 million active users. Over 39 million LinkedIn users are students and recent college grads. Their end of year revenue for 2014 was $643 million, nearly a 44% increase over the previous period. More social media facts Now that we have touched on most of the popular social media networks, let’s take a look at others from around the globe. In 2015, social networks will earn nearly $8.4 billion from advertising alone. Snapchat has a current value of $20 billion as of this writing. There are over 200 million Viber users. Qzone has nearly 639 million users (China) WeChat has 468 million users (China) VKontake in Russia has over 100 million users. Snapchat says they get over 100 million unique users every month. 3/4
WhatsApp is pulling in 600 million users. And Facebook Chat is following close behind with 500 million users. Looking at all of the facts as they are presented, it is easy to see why Google has chosen to push going mobile. Social media is here to stay, but it looks as though it is going to be hanging out on mobile devices for the future. So you might want to take your queues from Google and mobile optimize while you can.
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