How does the world use social media? Across borders, gender boundaries, and socio-economic classes, there are some fascinating trends and stats on social media. Here are some of the highlights. Some of them may surprise you and offer insights how best to reach audiences online.
1. Americans prefer to share less about themselves online than other nationalities do. Americans are more guarded about including personal information on social networking sites including photos, status updates and other personal information. According to a recent survey from Ipsos, “Across the 24 countries tracked, an average of 24% said they’d best describe their amount of sharing as either “most things” or “everything.” But that figure dropped to just 15% among American respondents.”
2. The same survey found that, among Americans, women were more likely to share personal information on social media platforms than men, 78% compared to 67%. Women are also more active on Facebook and Pintrest and men are more active on LinkedIn.
3. However, the trend toward sharing personal information is reversed among American teenagers between the ages of 12-18 according to a recent Pew Study. Teenage boys are more likely to share personal information including email addresses and phone numbers online than are teenage girls. Despite this however, American teens across the board are sharing more on all social media platforms than they were five years ago.
4. Interestingly, those with a higher level of education were also more likely to share information than those with less education, 83% compared to 65%.
5. Also, younger Americans between 18-35 years old were more likely than older Americans to share information, 82% compared to 62%.
6. Although older populations are still guarded about what they share on social media platforms, those over the age of 55 “are the fastest growing demographic on Twitter. Active usage grew 116% between Q2 and Q4 2012 while active usage among 45-54s increased 81% in the same period,” according to the Global Web Index.
7. In fact Twitter usage is on the rise globally, but also in the U.S. again after many years of leveling off. However the Global Web Index finds that Americans tend to be more passive receivers of information on Twitter using it for updates and news, as opposed to active participants.
8. It is not surprising that the United States still leads the world on participation in social media platforms, followed by the United Kingdom, Poland, and South Korea according to a Pew study. Across these countries Facebook is still the most widely known and used social media platform followed by Twitter.
9. Despite the fact that Internet penetration is low in many developing countries, mobile penetration is high. According to one article “the number of people accessing the Internet via a mobile phone increasing by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years.” Mobile-only based social media participation is disproportionately high in these countries compared with more developed countries says the same Pew Study. There may be many reasons for this including the use of social media as a means for free political expression and for more practical matters like crime and traffic reporting.
10. By contrast in some developed countries where there is ample Internet access like Germany and Japan, there is low participation on social media sites.
This is but a sampling of the vast statistics available on social media usage but it provides great insights for those seeking to use social media channels to promote their campaigns and products. What do you find to be the most surprising and usable for your purposes?
