99 New Social Media Stats for 2012
Following on from my last series of social media statistics articles: 100 social media, mobile and Internet statistics for 2012 from March, 100 social media statistics for 2012 that I posted in January and 100 more social media statistics for 2012 that I posted in February, here are the latest stats as at May 2012. (Update: there is now a newer, shinier social media stats article I have posted in September 2012. This took me a decent chunk of my time to put together so it would be great if you sent me a bunch of flowers, a million dollars or just posted a nice thanks message in the comments section (ideally the million would be great). Also, in the interests of shameless self-promotion, please like my Facebook Page and follow me on Twitter. And now, for the stats…
Follow @carapring
General Social Networking Stats
- 62% of adults worldwide now use social media
- Social networking is most popular online activity, with 22% of time online spent on channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
- 56% of social media users have admitted to using channels to spy on their partners
- Brazil has the highest online friends – average of 481 per user
- Japan has the lowest average online friends – avereage of just 29 friends per user
Mobile + apps Statistics
- 42% of mobile users share multimedia via Facebook
- Google+ is the second-most used social network for sharing multimedia content from a mobile device (10%)
- Smartphone owners now spend as much time using social networking apps such as Twitter and Facebook as they do playing games
- In Q1 2012, users logged an average of 24 minutes per day using social apps (on phone), with 24 minutes being spent on gaming apps
- There were around 100 billion smartphone application sessions during Q1 2012
- Users log an average of 77 minutes per day using apps on their smartphone
Social commerce statistics
- Social commerce sales should total $9.2 billion by the end of this year and are expected to climb to $14.25 billion in 2013 and $30 billion in 2015
- Some 167 million people will shop online this year, which will increase to 192 million by 2016 (spending an average of $1,800 per person per year)
- 20% would purchase within a social media site
- 40% of Twitter users regularly search for products via Twitter
- 12% of consumers have purchased a product online because of info they found on Twitter
- 60% are willing to post about products/services in FB if they get a deal or discount
Social media in business stats 
- 65% of the world’s top companies have an active Twitter profile
- 90% of marketers use social media channels for business, with 93% of these rating social tools as “important”
- 43% of marketers have noticed an improvement in sales due to social campaigns
- 72% of marketers who have worked in social media for three or more years said that they saw a boost in turnover due to social channels (the longer you’re working in it the better you get)
- 91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to social media campaigns and 79% are generating more quality leads
- The average time spent by marketers on social media is 1-5hrs per week for those just getting started and 6+ hours per week for those with 3+ years of experience
- The most popular social networking tool for marketing is Facebook – being used by 92%, followed by Twitter (84%), LinkedIn (71%) and blogs (68%)
- LinkedIn is 4X better for B2B lead generation than Facebook and Twitter
- Only 10% of marketers are actively monitoring social media ROI
- Only 22% of businesses have a dedicated social media manager
- 23% of Fortune 500 companies have a public-facing corporate blog
- 58% of Fortune 500 companies have an active corporate Facebook account, 62% have an active corporate Twitter account
- 47% of customers are somewhat likely to purchase from a brand that they follow or like
- 80% of US social network users prefer to connect with brands through Facebook
- 40% of consumers prefer social logins over creating a new/guest account
- In terms of users engaging with social log-in, 60% use Facebook, 12% Yahoo, 11% Twitter, 10% Google and 7% LinkedIn
Small Business Social Networking Stats
- 53% of small businesses are using social media
- 88% believe exposure is the biggest benefit
- 19% use Facebook, 15% LinkedIn and 4% Twitter
- 12% think it’s a must, 24% do it when they have the time and 14% say they don’t know enough about it
- Among online retailers, only 33% have metrics in place to track social media ROI
Pinterest statistics
- Pinterest is now the third most popular social network, behind Twitter and Facebook (in the US)
- 60% female
- 29% 35-44, 27% 25-34, 24% 45-54, 8% 55-64, 6% 18-24, 3% 0-17, 3% 65+
- 37% earn betwen $25k-$50k, 33% earn between $50k-$75k and 13% earn between $75k-$100k
- Over 20% of Facebook users are on Pinterest daily
- The Pinterest app has been downloaded nearly 250,000 times
- Pins with price information are just as likely to be shared as those that don’t – but are liked more often (1.5 likes vs 1.1 likes on average)
- For branded accounts, pins without prices are over twice as likely to be repinned than pins with prices
- The average time spent on Pinterest is 14.2 minutes
- Pinterest is projected to account for 40% of social media driven purchases by Q2 2012 (Facebook 60%)
- Buyers referred from Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy something and spend an average of 10% more than visitors from other social networks
- The US is the biggest country on Pinterest (accounting for almost 50% of users), followed by India (4.4%) and Canada (3.6%)
Twitter statistics
- The average Twitter user has 126 followers
- The average Twitter users tweets a link at 9am, achieves a 1.17% click through rate (1.4 followers click the link)
- Over 40% of Twitter users do not tweet anything
- About 0.05% of the total twitter population attract almost 50% of attention on the channel
- 71% of the millions of tweets each day attract no reaction
- 25% of Twitter users have no followers
- 45% of the mass communications posted on Twitter are nonsense
- 8% of Americans use Twitter
- Twitter now has more than 140 million active users, sending 340 million tweets every day
- Twitter users send over a billion tweets every 72 hours
- Twitter should see 250 million active users by the end of 2012
Facebook statistics
- 137.6 million unique visitors per month (In the USA alone)
- 7:45:49 = time spent per person per month on Facebook
- 54% of monthly users access it via a mobile device
- Facebook has 901 million monthly active users
YouTube Statistics
- 106.7 million unique visitors per month
- 1:41:27 = time spent per person per month on Facebook
- There are 4 billion views per day on YouTube
Social TV Statistics
- 42% of Americans watch TV while they’re on their laptops, smartphones or tablets
- 45% of men and 55% of women tweet while watching TV
- 31% of those aged 50+ are talking “TV” on social media, 27% 25-35 and 12% up to 18 years
- 50% of Twitter users that engage with shows discuss the show they’re watching in real-time
- 77% of social network users tweet to tell friends what they’re watching
- 68% tweet to keep shows they like on air
Customer Service in Social Media Statistics
- Social media users are willing to pay a 21% premium for brands that deliver great service through social media
- 17% have used social media in past year to obtain a service response
- Social media users who receive great service tell an average of 42 people (compared to just 9 for social absentees)
- 83% of social media users have not completed an intended purchase because of poor customer service and will inform 53 people (compared to 49% and 17 people for those not active on social)
General Internet statistics 2012
- The average US internet users spends 32 hours online every month
- Every month the online population spends equivalent to 4 million years online
- On average a global internet user spends 16 hours online (vs 32 hours for USA)
- The UK has the highest percentage of people online (85% = 53 million), followed by Germany (82% – 67 million), Fance (80% 52 million), Japan (80%, 102 million) and the USA (79% – 244 million)
- China has the most people online – 456 million (only 34% of population)
- Chinese users spend more than 5 hours a week shopping online
- There are more than 1 billion search queries per day on Google
- The highest growing trends: location-based services (27%), Timeshifted TV (27%), Internet Banking (19%)
- Least growing trends: Professionally created videos (12%), Live Internet videos (12%), user created videos (12%)
So that’s about it for the latest social media, mobile and Internet statistics as at May 2012 – as per usual I’ll have another statistics update in another month for you. To make sure you don’t miss out on the most up to date statistics be sure to like my Facebook Page, follow me on Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube…. I love being stalked. And also, that million dollars (most importantly).
List of contributing statistics articles:
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/online-time_b22186
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-marketing-infographic_b22134
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/future-social-customer_b22111
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-consumer-service_b22105
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/video-infographic-pinterest-statistics-stats-facts/
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-apps-study_b21961
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/marketers-social-media_b21954
http://socialmediatoday.com/davidmeermanscott/493633/linkedin-4x-better-b2b-leads-facebook-or-twitter-says-hubspot-study
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/pinterest-twitter-facebook_b21888
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-business-roi_b22274
http://allfacebook.com/socialbakers-mobile-infographic_b88216
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-140-million-active-users_b19729
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-tv_b22208
Hey! My name is Cara Pring and this is 
Spreading the love!
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LikeDislikeinteresting post.
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LikeDislike“56% of social media users have admitted to using channels to spy on their partners”. And these are the only folk who actually admit to checking out who and what their partners are doing on facebook. I’m sure with the increase in online dating, checking out your prospect’s friends, may indicate the company they keep.
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LikeDislikeToday in the NZ Herald – Go Break The Ice (GBTI). FB obviously saw an opportunity in this 56% of social media users. Facebook is using kiwis to launch its new feature. GBTI works on friends’ recommendations – bringing a new level of transparency and honesty to the online dating world, said company spokesman Philip Behnke.
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LikeDislike“On average a global internet user spends 16 hours online (vs 32 hours for USA)” – I presume that’s per month?
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LikeDislikeHi Cath – you are right indeed, it is per month. Should have been more specific in the article, thanks for pointing it out
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LikeDislikeAbsolutely blown away by the details in these past few stat articles I just discovered today. I love this stuff!
I agree with an earlier comment … you should have a ‘Donate’ button as I’d be happy to send some coin to you.
This is priceless to me and I am so grateful. Yes, I’ve signed up and now following on all fronts.
Can’t wait to see what comes next!!!
Thanks John, I really appreciate it – will think about putting a donate button but in the meantime these messages of gratitude are all the payment I need
Let me know if you’ve got any ideas for future articles!
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LikeDislikeHello I am Portuguese wanted to meet people in australia because it is a fascinating country …
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LikeDislikeHi Manuel, it is a great country! You should come for a visit one day. Thanks for the comment (even if it’s slightly off-topic)
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LikeDislikeGreat articl! I love statistics and these are excellent ones that I can use in my research and writing.
Thank you and your flowers should arrive some time today;)
Val
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LikeDislikeThanks Valarie!!
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
Once again, a fabulous set of statistics you’ve put together. I always find interesting bits and pieces here that I can use in my presentations.
I’ve given you some Facebook liking love too. ;o)
Wendy
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LikeDislikeThank you for sharing valuable information
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LikeDislike“I love being stalked.”
A statistics fan with a sense of humor? Who could ask for more? Nicely done.
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LikeDislikeNot following the Facebook stat:
137.6 million unique visitors per month
Facebook has 901 million monthly active users
What is the difference? does this mean the 137.6 million unique visitors account for a total of 901 million visits?
901 million is the number I have heard of registered users, not all necessarily using facebook every month
thanks for the clarification
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LikeDislikeHi Jim
Good point. Actually that monthly stat is for the USA alone – sometimes when you read articles they don’t bother to specify because they think the whole world revolves around America only! I checked on it and realised it’s just in the US and amended the article to reflect this. Thanks for pointing the discrepancy out.
The 901 million monthly active users means that there are 901 million people around the world that log onto Facebook and use it in any given month (as opposed to simply visiting the site, which may mean they don’t even have an account but just checking it out)
Hope that helps and thanks again
Cara
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LikeDislikeThis was very useful. Thank you so much for the effort you put into it
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LikeDislikeThanks for putting this all together! In the future, can you site each specific stat? It’s great to have the statistics all in one place, but time consuming to figure out where each one came from in order to verify/cite.
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LikeDislikeVery interesting, cool share!
This is even a bit scary if you think about it
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LikeDislikeThanx for the info
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LikeDislikeHi – I wish I’d found this site earlier as there are some really useful stats here. I don’t know if it’ll interest you, but I’ve been having a look at actual social media usage (initially Facebook) within a specific geographic area, and have blogged about it: http://markbraggins.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/estimating-social-media-usage-within-a-geographic-area/
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LikeDislike“•62% of adults worldwide now use social media”, Seems like a silly thing to say . Who would believe 62% of adults in the world have access .
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LikeDislikeHi Ann, it’s a good point. A lot of the time these stats just have an assumed ‘online’ in there – so 62% of ‘online adults’ are using social media. Sounds fairly reasonable to me. However, we can never really be sure about the accuracy of any statistics, always just relying on the source where it came from – all of these stats have been compiled from external sources, I can’t claim to have run any studies myself!
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LikeDislikeHi Cara, I keep coming back to your list as a point of reference. I’m continuing to collect and analyse data for local Facebook usage, and now have some mobile Facebook data by device type (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android etc) in case you’re interested.
Latest post about it here:
http://markbraggins.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/facebook-usage-a-local-perspective/
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LikeDislikeGreat info!
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LikeDislikeThanks for the info! Just wondering how accurate these statistics are? How was the information sourced?
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LikeDislikeHi Gemma, you can see a list of sources underneath the article.
thanks
Cara
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
Love the info:) Do you know where I can get data for hourly FB activity per country? Thanks again.
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LikeDislikeA HUGE thank you! Your data has really helped me out! I’m definitely spreading the word!
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LikeDislikeI love the stats but wonder where they come from. Don’t doubt you, of course
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LikeDislikeHi Paul, links to the sources are included at the end of the article
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LikeDislikeThat’s a great post! The mobile apps statistics are really cool and the general social networking stats are just unbelievable. I think the percentage of adults worldwide using social media is not just 62% as this can be the average with the calculation of the age that they have mentioned. I have seen many adults mentioning fake ages and using the profile. If we happen to include that then the percentage will exceed 75% for sure. Anyways, thanks for the informative share.
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LikeDislikeHere is crazy and unbelievable business!
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LikeDislikeKudos Cara for the lively (hot) pic and interesting post with real good insights.
While most of the stats point towards increase in social media usage and its impact on sales (which i guess is natural given the ease of calculating ROI on social media investments), I would like to ask if you have seen any trends and have stats around social media usage for servicing. How can one really look at creating a tangible ROI calculations and business case for social media utility in servicing.I see a lot of organizations are still skeptical in creating a robust social media servicing strategy. Any pointers on that!!!
Cheers
Saurabh
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
Thanks for the stats which I will share with my college students in my Social Media Marketing class, giving you credit! Wish you were close to Central Va. so you could come speak to my class!
Cat
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LikeDislikeThanks for the interesting data!
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LikeDislikeAwesome to find some data and links, using some of the stats for a panel talk, like using some data when reflecting on things. Thankyou for doing this.!
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LikeDislikeLove these stats, so interesting to know some of this stuff. Thanks for sharing.
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LikeDislikeReally great information. Thank you for compiling this and sharing it. I’d high five you, if I could.
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LikeDislikei am hear to give testimony of how i got back my husband, we got married for more than 9 years and have gotten two kids. thing were going well with us and we are always happy. until one day my husband started to behave in a way i could not understand, i was very confused by the way he treat me and the kids. later that month he did not come home again and he called me that he want a divorce, i asked him what have i done wrong to deserve this from him, allhe was saying is that he want a divorce that he hate me and do not want to see me again in his life, i was mad and also frustrated do not know what to do,i was sick for more than 2 weeks because of the divorce. i love him so much he was everything to me without him my life is incomplete. i told my sister and she told me to contact a spell caster, i never believein all this spell casting of a thing. i just want to try if something will come out of it. icontacted traditionalspellhospital for the return of my husband to me, they told me that my husband have been taken by another woman, that she cast a spell on him that is why he hate me and also want us to divorce. then they told me that they have to cast a spell onhim that will make him return to me and the kids, they casted the spell and after 1 week my husband called me and he told me that i should forgive him, he sterted to apologize on phone and said that he still live me that he did not know what happen to him that he left me. it was the spell that he traditionalspellhospital casted on him that make him comeback to me today,me and my family are now happy again today. thank you traditionalspellhospital for what you have done for me i would have been nothing today if not for your great spell. i want you my friends who are passing through all this kind of love problem of getting back thier husband, wife , or ex boyfriend and girlfriend to and you will see that your problem will be solved without any delay.
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LikeDislikeWhilst this is so clearly spam (and I’ve removed the email address associated), I just had to leave it because it made me laugh so very much.
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LikeDislikeSearching for a general statistic — how many social connections does the average person have? By country ideally, but any country would help.
All ideas welcome!
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LikeDislikeHi Amy, I’ll keep a lookout for this stat for you – I’m sure I’ve seen it floating around somewhere before
Good information. Thanks for the research.
I have another statistic that hopefully you may be able to find. I am interested in knowing how many twitter users, topics, etc., does the average person follow? My curiosity comes from how much emphasis is placed on one’s number of twitter followers in the media these days. Case in point, of the top 10 most followed people on twitter, the only non celebrity/entertainer is President Obama (This is of course the American twitter statistics). It is lauded as some great achievement to have millions upon millions of followers, as if that achievement alone is more impressive than whatever the person actually has accomplished. It certainly is impressive, sure enough; but, if each of (for example) Justin Bieber’s 20 million twitter followers each followed (for example) 1,000 twitter accounts, that means that of those 20 billion total follows, he makes up less than 1% of them. The average user will make up a considerably less percentage of a given sample of total follows, but nevertheless, to me that makes ones number of followers almost irrelevant and, like stocks, causes the “market” to be flooded. In otherwords, if you “Like” or “Follow” everything, you don’t really like or follow anything, just like if everyone owned a piece of stock in Apple, that piece of stock would be worthless. I know I am drawing a strange tangent, but I think this counter argument is at least important to discuss given how suddenly exposure via twitter has juxtaposed itself in the media.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you for the article.
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LikeDislikeCara – I’m looking for a stat/data on the average number of online accounts that a person has today – factoring in email, social media, financial institutions, etc. Any idea on a good source for that?
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LikeDislikeHi Geoff
I’ll keep an eye out for it!
Cara
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LikeDislikeHi Cara –
Quick question about your social media for businesses stat: 43% of marketers have noticed an improvement in sales due to social campaigns
Do you have more information on that? For example, what types of companies that information came from (B2B, B2C) and what types of social campaigns they ran?
Thanks.
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LikeDislikeHi Alexandra I’m working on a new stats article that may have some helpful information. Stay tuned!
Cara
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LikeDislikeYou guys hear of this new network http://www.formvote.com ?
Thank you for sharing. A+
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LikeDislikeEach visual overlay aggregates your visitors behaviour and provides an instant peek at how visitors interact with your site.
Use Mouse Movement Heatmap to find “hot” keywords, images and buttons that visitors tend to pay attention to.
If you want to learn more about heat maps , read our website.
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LikeDislikegreat blog
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LikeDislikeWhat a great blog! Fantastic information regarding social media and now one of my “must reads”. I work at Blurtster.com, a social media tool for small businesses and see the changes in the industry every day. It is amazing and this site really keeps you up to date with new and informative statistics.
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LikeDislikeThis is really helpful with my coursework for media
yay
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LikeDislikeglad to hear it Loki! Say hi to Thor for me when you next see him
Amazing Informative statistics….
Lot of surprising information specially about social media…
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LikeDislikeGreat info – just what I was looking for. However, I’d like to quote your stats to clients and would like to show the original data source. Any chance you’d be prepared to supply references in future blogs?
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LikeDislikeGreat info – just what I was looking for. However, I’d like to quote your stats to clients and would like to show the original data source. Any chance you’d be prepared to supply references in future blogs?
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LikeDislikeHi Ann
I do supply references at the end of this article. I also have an updated article – http://thesocialskinny.com/216-social-media-and-internet-statistics-september-2012/ which has improved referencing throughout
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LikeDislikeamazing article! You rock chica. and i totally get your name “the social skinny” which is an awesome name. so happy i found your site.
http://www.angelquintana.com
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LikeDislikeThanks Angel
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
Nice article. Do you have any stats how FB marketing stacks up against Custom Mobile (native) apps?
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LikeDislikeSorry Larry, nothing at this stage. If anything shows up I’ll let you know!
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LikeDislikeIts hard to believe that, “Google+ is the second-most used social network for sharing multimedia content from a mobile device (10%)” when there are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Tumblr Apps. All of which reported more users that G+.
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LikeDislikeHi Alan – I agree and this is where you have to consider that stats are only as good as the data used to compile them at the time they were compiled. There’s every chance the study that concluded this happened right when there was a lot of hype around Google+ so that people were much more active on the network. Sometimes you need to take stats with a grain of salt because particularly with social media, they are always changing. That’s why I try to write an updated stats article every month (see my latest one here: http://thesocialskinny.com/216-social-media-and-internet-statistics-september-2012/)
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LikeDislikeGreat post…..!
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LikeDislikeHi you,
nice stats – could you tell me where you got them from?
Is there any official statistic displaying the results you have been published here?
Would like to use some figures for my project, but I need a reliable source!
Thanks for letting me know.
Cu
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LikeDislikeHi Teresa
As I mention in all my statistics articles, the sources are down the bottom of the article. In my latest stats post I spent a lot more time referencing every statistic so that there was no longer any confusion. Hope that helps.
Thanks
Cara
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LikeDislikeHi…!
I am new in this blog thanks for sharing this information.!
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LikeDislikeI like Bodeezer, they have a dislike button
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LikeDislikeI think you’ve written great . Yes, you’ve chosen the right topics to inform us in such a informative way. Thanks for the helpful post you’ve provided. Hoping further informative post thanks you again.
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LikeDislikeHello Cara
Great post thank you for the info- can you elaborate on the point:
Social media users are willing to pay a 21% premium for brands that deliver great service through social media
it’s a great stat, what defines or what examples can you give for ‘great service through social media’?
And do you have stats for how many visits/ per month the ave FB and Twitter user makes? And how many FRB and Twitter users are 0-5 visits/ month. Any traffic/ frequency data would be great!
Thank you, Dominic.
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LikeDislikethanks for the great stats….didn’t that many people (adults) were on social media
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