Social networks are far and wide popular and are the key means for marketing, business and networking purposes. The trends don’t easily change, but the popular sites does show different level of usage based on demographics. Smartinsights.com brings the newest social media statistics relating to consumer adoption and usage.

Social Media 2017 update

Given below are some of the questions that social Marketers should check into while deciding on how much time to invest in social media.

Question – Most Popular Social network

The Statista compilation of the most popular social network undoubtedly shows Facebook is ruling the media. Facebook has over 1,870 million active users and holds a total of 18% market share and its closest competitor is Facebook owned Whatsapp.

APAC favored platforms accounts for a total of over 600 million active users with QQ standing at 9% and WeChat at 8% and Qzone at 7%. The western social media networks stands with Tumblr at 6%, Instagram at 4% and Twitter at 4%.

Facebook is leading with major market share and retaining huge lead. The penetration rate stood at 89% for US users and Instagram stood at 32% in the penetration rate.

Question – Fastest growing Social network

A Marketer has very limited time when it comes to marketing in social networks. So basic question is which network to focus on? Statista chart shows the growth of Twitter and how it compares to Facebook, WeChat and Whatsapp.

Question – Most Engaging Social network

The most important factor that matters in social media marketing is the total amount of audience engagement. Facebook enjoys the dominance when it comes to social engagement.

According to US Consumer panel from comScore – Facebook has biggest engagement. The update also shows UK comparing Facebook vs Twitter vs Instagram vs Pinterest vs Snapchat. This chart especially demonstrates the engagement on the amount of time spent on platforms with the demographics. It’s amazingly great to see Facebook at top position and interesting to note the development of Snapchat and Instagram on monthly usage per visitors. Facebook’s successors are also impressively at 47 penetration rate for Facebook messenger and Instagram for its engagement, they are both Facebook owned platforms.

Question – Interaction rates in Social Media

TrackMaven’s analyses of over 51 million posts from 40000 companies from over 130 industries clearly shows Instagram dominating all others counting on the number of interactions per 1,000 followers. The number is so high that it required second chart to demonstrate the big differences between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Instagram dominates the lead in interactions but Facebook tops it when it comes to networks like Twitter and LinkedIn. People tend to frequently post on Twitter since it doesn’t follow any algorithm serving posts only to particular section of audience. Twitter actually acts like fire hose of content, companies keep sharing more often to have more visibility and create noise on the platform. This actually results in low engagement per post.

Question – Global Social Media Usage

SmartInsights.com brings an exclusive summary of Social Media and Mobile stats from WeAreSocial Singapore, the records are mainly extracted from GWI. Global Web Index provides the most reliable research statistics that helps to compare consumer use and engagement on different social networks. Researches are done on a quarterly basis for which the total sample size is 40,000 of Internet research program.

It is interesting to note the massive difference amongst different countries when it comes to the use of social media and more so interesting to see the western countries are lagging behind when it comes to adoption rates. The Annual increase in growth rate of mobile users stood at 17% in 2016.

The Asia-Pacific region showed good internet usage rate and the number of active social media users increased by 14% in 2015 alone.

Counting on the global internet users, East Asian and South Asian markets have remarkably hit the tide. With digital innings, it has become easier to reach out to these people although cultural challenges are always the hurdle in International markets.

Social networks popularity (country-wise)

Based on the interviews in the GWI reports, it shows great visualization when it comes to popularity of social networks. Countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are amongst the top 10 countries that tops the list for using four core social networks (facebook, twitter, YouTube and Google plus.

Social networks are strikingly showing signs of maturity giving opportunities for people of all age groups and genders; the only exception is Instagram and Tumblr that are more popular among the younger age group.