Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think

Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

Stats from Video(sources listed below by corresponding #)

  1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
  2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
  3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
  4. Years to Reach 50 million Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
  5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
  6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
  7. ComScore indicates that Russia has the most engaged social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
  8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
  9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
  10. The percent of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
  11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55 to 65-year-old females
  12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
  13. 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
  14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
  15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
  16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
  17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
  18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
  19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
  20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
  21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
  22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
  23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content — check out SEO Toronto to learn the trick of the trade
  24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
  25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
  26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
  27. Only 14% trust advertisements
  28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
  29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
  30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
  31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
  32. According to Jeff Bezos, 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
  33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
  34. In the near future, we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
  35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
  36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
  37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

The above statistics and “Social Media Revolution” video tell the story, social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.  Please feel free to share with any non-believers!

Huge Thanks to These Outstanding Sources

Below are the sources I used to compile this video.  Keep your feedback/questions/challenges coming as it will collectively make video #2 that much better – you know to leverage this whole “social” thing.
Huge thanks to all below:
  1. Source: Grunwald Associates National Study – Trendsspotting Blog | Millenials Conference
  2. Source: Huffington Post
  3. Source: McKinsey Study also posted by David Dalka
  4. Source: First Stats: United Nations Cyberschoolbus Document
    Facebook Stat: Mashable
    iPhone Stat: Apple
  5. Source: Facebook
  6. Source: TechCrunch
  7. Source: comScore
  9. Source:  Attempting to relocate
  10. Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey Note: 80% will use social networks in their assessment.  95% will use LinkedIn in their assessment.  When we revise the Video needs to be updated changing “their” to “a” primary tool need to see if we bump 80% to 95%
  11. Source: Inside Facebook Blog
  12. Source: Twitter & World Population Data
  13. Source: Attempting to relocate
  14. Source: Metro Newspaper
  15. Opinion, not a statistic
  16. Source: TGDaily
  17. Source: www.wikipedia.org – calculated based on # articles per language category; Colorado State University Wikipedia Accuracy Study; open debate and of course very biased information is also found on this Wikipedia Accuracy page.  If I had to do it again I would have made this say as accurate rather than more – obviously, some articles will be more accurate (think of the real-time update of Michael Jackson’s death, but also some will be less accurate.
  18. Source: China Internet Information Center, Technorati, Wikipedia
  19. Source: ClickZ Stats SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
  20. Opinion, not a statistic
  21. Calculated based on Wikipedia article data found at www.wikipedia.org
  22. Source:  TechCrunch — This says 4 weeks so I may have been a little off here as my source at Facebook had said 2 weeks adjusted above
  23. Source: Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
  25. Opinion, not a statistic
  26. Source: July 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (actually 90% now – updated above but video still shows 78%)
  27. Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
  28. Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
  29. Source: Starcom USA-TiVo
  30. Source: Nielsen
  31. Source: Solutions Research Group
  32. Source: Henry Blodget Silicon Alley Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-kindle-sales-now-a-shocking-35-of-book-sales-when-kindle-version-available-2009-5 Just as the URL shows it’s not 35% of all books sales, but rather if a Kindle Version and a Book Version are available the buyer selects the Kindle version 35% of the time.
  34. Opinion from Socialnomics
  35. Source: Facebook
  36. Music in video provided by Fatboy Slim “Right Here, Right Now” (1999) – if you like it buy the single

If anyone sees any inaccuracies or has better source information please let me know!

Also, if you haven’t seen Marta Kagan’s “What The F**K is Social Media” presentation,  it’s amazing! Many of the same eye-popping facts are contained in it – as well as many more.  Plus, it does a much better job of providing insight than my video which is designed to grab attention.  Kagan’s presentation informs, check it out!

To watch a video with millions of YouTube views and deservedly so, please check out Karl Fisch and Scott McCleod’s Did You Know? It is filled with compelling stats that relate to globalization, education, and technology – Love it!

We hope you found the above post to be informative and entertaining.  

About the Author: Erik Qualman

Often called a Digital Dale Carnegie and The Tony Robbins of Tech, Erik Qualman is a #1 Best Selling Author and Motivational Keynote Speaker that has spoken in 49 countries.

His Socialnomics work has been featured on 60 Minutes to the Wall Street Journal and used by the National Guard to NASA. His book Digital Leader propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. Qualman is a sitting professor at Harvard & MIT's edX labs.

His latest book What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube is a Pulitzer Prize nominated work.
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