100 social media statistics for 2012
We all love statistics, specially when they are about social media. I’ve made life so much easier by compiling all the statistics I could find over the past month or so in one handy bulleted article, including the following stats: Facebook, Facebook in business, Twitter, Twitter in business, LinkedIn, YouTube, Other (social networks), General social media stats, Mobile, QR codes and Facebook in Australia stats. Feel free to let me know if any of them are outdated or if I’ve missed any good ones. Enjoy! Note: I’ve now posted another social media statistics article in September 2012 (with 216 stats!)
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Global social media statistics
- There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users (this was reached on July 1 2011)
- 200 million accounts were added in 2011
- Facebook is the most visited website on the internet (reaching one trillion pageviews on June 30 2011)
- 11% of the world population has a Facebook account
- There are more Facebook users than cars (800 million vs 750 million)
- 50% log onto Facebook every day
- The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups
- The average user spends 700 mins per month on the site
- Every 60 seconds on Facebook there are:
- 510,000 posted comments
- 293,000 status updates
- 136,000 uploaded photos
- 30 billion pieces of content are shared each month
- Facebook reached 55% of the world’s global audience accounting for roughly 75% of time spent on social networking sites and one in every seven minutes spent online globally
- Facebook is blocked in China
- Almost 50% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up – 28% before even getting out of bed
- 20 million Facebook applications are installed per day
- Over 250 million people access Facebook via their mobile phone
- In just 20 minutes, over 1 million links are shared, 1.5 million event invites are sent, 1.8 million statuses are updated, 2 million friend requests are accepted, 2.7 million photos are uploaded, 2.7 million messages are sent and 10.2 million comments are made
- More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook
- FritoLay set a World Record with 1,575,161 Facebook likes in 24 hours on April 11 2011
- 95% of Facebook wall posts are not answered by brands
- Auto-posting to Facebook decreases likes and comments by 70%
- 56% of consumers say they are more likely to recommend a brand after becoming a fan on Facebook
- Two most popular reasons for liking a brand on Facebook: 1. because they are a customer (58%), 2. to get access to discounts and promotions (57%)
- There are over 36.5M fans of Coca-Cola on Facebook
- Twitter has 225,000,000 users
- 100 million of these users are logging in at least once a month, 50 million are logging in every day
- 190,000,000 tweets are sent on average per day
- 1 billion tweets were sent every five days in 2011
- The record is 25,088 tweets per second (when Castle in the Sky was broadcast in Japan)
- A great majority of tweets are just 40 characters long
- The average user has 115 followers
- Lady Gaga is the most followed person on Twitter with over 17.8M followrs
40% of Twitter users don’t tweet, but instead use it to keep up to date- 55% access Twitter via mobile
- Twitter handles 1.6 billion queries per day
- Nearly 500,000 users are added each day
- About 21% of Indonesians are on Twitter, making them the most Twitter-addicted nation
- Japan is the only country where Twitter is more popular than Facebook
Twitter Business:
- 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter and 20% have closed deals
- Tweets that include verbs have a 2% higher shareability than average tweets
- LinkedIn has 135,000,000 users (as at Nov 2011), up from about 85 million in late 2010
- Every second two new users sign up
- Age demographics are: 21% 18-24, 36% 25-34, 36% 35-54, 7% 55+
- LinkedIn membership includes executives from every company listed on the Fortune 500
- 49% of LinkedIn users have a household income over $100k
- YouTube has 490 million unique visitors per month (as at Feb 2011), which generates 92 billion page views
- In 2010 YouTube reached 700 billion playbacks
- 35 hours of video is uploaded every minute
- More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years
- Users on YouTube spend a total of 2.9 billion hours per month (326,294 years)
Google Plus
- Google+ was the fastest social network to reach 10 million users at 16 days (Twitter 780 days and Facebook 852)
- Google Plus experienced an increase of 55% in traffic in December 2011 from November 2011
- Though Google+ is secretive about the number of users, it has been reported that there are 62 million Google+ users (Source: Paul Allen)
Other Social Networks
- 3,500 photos are uploaded each second on flickr
- Flickr hosts over 5 billion images
- Instagram reached 13 million users 13 months after launch
- There are over 150,000,000 photos uploaded with instagram
- Foursquare sees 2,000,000 check-ins a week
- 15 million people have Foursquare accounts (as at Dec 2011)
- Wikipedia hosts over 17 million articles
- There are over 91,000 Wikipedia contributors
- QR code uptake has increased 4589% from early 2010 to early 2011
- 56% of QR codes appear on product packaging
- The majority of users expect to receive a coupon or deal from scanning a QR code
- 11 out of 50 Fortune companies are incorporating QR codes into their marketing strategy
- 68% of QR codes are scanned via an iPhone
General social media statistics
- Women are more active on social media than men – 55% vs 45%
- Social media is responsible for one third of the web traffic in Malaysia
- North American consumers show the strongest interest in using social media for deals (45%), followed by consumers in Asia-Pacific (34%) and Latin America (33%)
- A 2011 study confirmed that social media users dine out more and are more likely to become return customers
- 43% of all online consumers follow or are a fan of a brand
- 57% of people talk to people more online than they do in real life
- 15% of 16-24 year olds prefer to receive customer service via social media over any other method, compared to just 8% of 25-34 year olds and 3% of those aged 35-44
- Social media use is becoming much more even across age groups (see graph below)
- Facebook alone accounts for 10% of all mobile data on the iPhone
- Globally more people own a mobile phone than a toothbrush
- There are over 500,000 apps in Apple’s App Store (as at Dec 2011)
- There are 400,000 apps for the Android operating system (as at Dec 2011)
- Of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones, 1.08 billion are smartphones
- Smartphone users are twice more active on social media than non smartphone users
- 60% admit to using their device while going to the bathroom
- 86% of mobile users are watching TV while using a mobile phone
- Over 200 million access Facebook from a mobile device and 91% of all mobile internet use is “social” related
- By 2014 mobile internet use should overtake desktop internet use
- ½ of all local searches are done on mobile devices
- Half of Twitter’s users use Twitter on their mobile
- There are 200 million + views of YouTube clips on mobiles every day
Facebook in Australia statistics
- Approximately 100,000 new Facebook accounts were created each month in 2011
- There are over 10.7 million Australians actively using Facebook (log in at least once every 30 days) – over 60% of the online population
- 54% of Australian Facebook users are female, 46% are male.
- The largest age group of Facebook users in Australia is 25-34 year olds, followed by 18-24 year olds.
- In 2011, more than 28% of all Australians on Facebook were between the ages of 35 and 54
- Brisbane is the most Facebook-obsessed city, with the highest percentage of Facebook penetration, followed by Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
- Three areas of Melbourne Airport were included in the top 5 most popular places to check-in in Australia for 2011 (including number 1 and 2)
- The average Australian user spends 26 minutes and 27 seconds on Facebook every time they log and will spend 6 hours and 46 minutes on Facebook per month
- The most talked about topics on Facebook Australia in 2011 were:
- Planking
- Cyclone Yasi
- Census
- Death of Osama Bin Laden
- Skrillex
- Victorian floods
- Daniel Morcombe
- Charlie Sheen
- Death of Amy Winehouse
- Cadel Evans.
Update: I have just written a new article with a further 100 social media statistics, which you can find here: 100 more social media statistics for 2012. Update2: I have just written another article with a further 100 social media, mobile and Internet statistics here: 100 social media, mobile and internet statistics 2012 (March).
For statistics on Australian brands on Facebook, see my article from Sep 2011: http://thesocialskinny.com/australian-brands-on-facebook-statistics-and-best-practice/
Other sources used to collate these stats:
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/
http://socialmediatoday.com/node/401475
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-statistics_b17188
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2134516/social-media-2011-highlights-included
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/deal-with-it-discounts-drive-brand-love-on-social-media/
http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-billions-2011-12
http://www.web123.com.au/blog/facebook-australia-2011-stats-revealed.aspx
http://socialtimes.com/google-traffic-up-55-hits-49m-visits-in-december_b87156
http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-growth-australia-2011-infograph/
http://mashable.com/2012/01/09/tweets-by-country/
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-2011-records_b17430
http://socialtimes.com/survey-49-of-linkedin-users-have-household-income-over-100k_b87449
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-facebook-customer-support_b17505











Hey! My name is Cara Pring and this is 

Hey Cara,
Great job putting these stats together… it certainly has been a great resource for me when writing my blogs.
I look forward to receiving your blog posts regularly via email!
Cheers
Paige
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LikeDislikeThanks Paige! Be sure to let me know if there is ever anything you’d specifically like me to cover
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LikeDislikeGreat job putting these stats
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LikeDislikeAre these global stats? Im interested in Australian stats.
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LikeDislikeHi Viv – you and me both! They are very hard to come by. The only Australian stats in this article are the ‘Facebook in Australia’ stats. The rest are global. I’ve written a couple of other articles that may help that are purely Australian:
http://thesocialskinny.com/australian-brands-on-facebook-statistics-and-best-practice/
http://thesocialskinny.com/australians_and_the_internet/
If anything else gets released I’ll definitely report on it here. Thanks for stopping by!
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
Thanks for aggregating the stats. A few more interesting (I’m biased) reads:
http://www.nmincite.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/nmIncite_fb-add-remov-4083-31.gif
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/nielsen-social-local-mobile.pdf
Cheers,
Justin
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LikeDislikeA very helpful article, as always! Cheers for pulling the info together.
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LikeDislikeThanks for cataloging these facts!
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LikeDislikeCara,
These facts are fantastic. Finally, an actual compiled post of current social media platform statistics. Love the post! Keep em coming, I am an avid follower of your “skinny.”
Best,
Cody
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LikeDislikeInteresting facts! Thanks for sharing Cara. I really need these stats for an upcoming project regarding Social Media.
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LikeDislikeThese statistics are a fantastic source, thank you very much for putting them together. Will certainly be following your blog from now on!
@cdjrees
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LikeDislikeVery nice work. I would suggest leaving references next to each statement, though, to lend credibility to the numbers.
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LikeDislikeHi Bob – I completely understand that it is a bit frustrating not doing this. I initially tried to but a) it takes so much longer (and I’m already taking more time than I would like to collate them) and b) sometimes i get stats for 2-3 different sections from the one article – I don’t really want to spam the page with links (and from what I understand this isn’t the best for my SEO either) – hence in the end I take the other option.
If you’re looking for a particular stat source and it’s not obvious in the list of articles, you could always google the stat and see what comes up – hopefully the source article would appear. Thanks for the feedback
Cara
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LikeDislikeIt’s crazy how on a billboard advertising a family get together, 2 out of the 5 people are holding and looking at their phones… great family get together.
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LikeDislikeAwesome article! Have you guys heard of this other social network that’s starting to make some noise? http://www.Formvote.com , it’s pretty awesome.
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LikeDislikeHello!
Great information, aggregated nicely. The only thing I wanted to point out was that Farmers actually holds the record for most fans in a 24 hour period with nearly 2 million.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/10000/most-likes-on-a-facebook-page-in-24-hours
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LikeDislikeThis is really a helpful article. Few unnoticed things needs to be cared carefully!
Keep it up!
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LikeDislikeHi, Cara
I like this article very much. Great Job!
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LikeDislikehi,

I used some of your stats on my sales page to make some points. Thanks for that. I like your style.
Martin
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LikeDislikeanother simple stat for indonesian twitter users, indotwee.com
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LikeDislikeevery 60 seconds on Facebook there are 293,000 status updates BUT in just 20 minutes 1.8 million statuses are updated?
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LikeDislikeHi!
How can the number of active users be higher than the total number of users?
You clam that 11% of the world’s population is registered on Facebook (at the time these numbers were originally noted down), yet as of today, almost a year later, 11% of the world’s population would amount to a mere 767 million, which is a considerable amount less than the 800 million claimed in the article.
(This number (767 million) would have been even less at the time this article was written)
How can that be?
Also, it seems you’ve confused active users and total users; there may very well be 800 million registered accounts on Facebook, but I sincerely doubt that more than 50-60% are actually being used actively.
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LikeDislikeHi there, I just collate these statistics from a whole bunch of external sources (all reputable) – that is why in some cases there are discrepancies and they appear to conflict. In my latest article I’ve been much clearer about the sources, so that you can go to the original article and delve deeper into the stats. Thanks for highlighting the issue
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LikeDislikeHi Cara, I’m wondering if there are any stats on the best times to post on Facebook in Australia from a Business page, plus the best days? Thanks again for such valuable info. Jen in Brissy.
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LikeDislikeHi Jen, it’s a great question. To be honest I’ve read competing theories on it. Some say the weekend is best because there is less clutter because most pages post during the week (when employees are at work), but I conducted some research on it and found otherwise. I’ve also heard that Tuesday is a good day, and I’ve heard that Thursday and Friday are good days too. I’ve also read it depends on what industry you’re in… and I’ve read that the morning is better, the afternoon is better and the evening is better
Honestly I don’t think there is really a definitive answer, but the best thing to do is trial it yourself and see which times are getting you the most engagement!
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LikeDislikeJust wondering if you could put a list of references… It would be nice to be able to show that this source is credible… then again, I COULD search em up myself, but I don’t know where to start :<
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LikeDislikenevermind, I skimmed right past em :<
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LikeDislikeThis article is very useful.. Thanks for sharing
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LikeDislikeI am new to blogging, and I enjoyed reading your blog so much! It helped me get inspired to be consistent with it and you mentioned quite a few GREAT tips that I am going to apply in my future blogs. I really appreciate this information! I am very impressed with the knowledge you are posting here. Thanks for sharing and let us know more about new releases. Thank you for taking the time to share this valuable research with everyone.
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LikeDislikeWhat did you mean by auto-posting in “auto-posting” reduces likes and commentss by 70%?
Thanks
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LikeDislikeHi Chase – I mean that by using an automatic posting method (like for example if you post via Twitter and it automatically posts on Facebook).
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