11 Social Media Statistics You Should Have Known Yesterday

11 Social Media Statistics You Should Have Known Yesterday

Social media may be in a state of continuous change, but the importance and influence of statistics remains constant. Depending on the data, social stats might result in the addition of something new or the removal of an existing element in your strategy. In either case, they serve to inspire change.

As marketers, you put a lot of work into keeping your profiles fresh and active with relevant, interesting updates. And any adjustments made to that strategy are often motivated by something you learned from A/B testing or inferred from a study.

Although they’re not hard to come by, we’ve identified some of our favorites. Here are 11 social media statistics that will serve as inspiration for an upcoming or existing campaign strategy.

1. The Most Repinned Images On Pinterest Have Multiple Colors

Images are a powerful marketing asset in general, but they’re especially important for engagement on Pinterest. Curalate’s data science team reviewed more than a half million images on the platform and examined 30 different visual characteristics, including colors and textures. The team found that pins with multiple dominant colors have 3.25 times more repins per image than images with a single dominant color.

If you do choose the single color route, though, go with red. According to Curalate’s blog post, images that are red, orange, and brown receive about twice as many repins than images that are blue.

That’s not to say that you can only add red-colored Pins to your boards. However, it does give you something to think about when you’re trying to give a specific pin a bit of an edge over the competition.

2. Social Media Is Aging

More people than ever before are adopting social media, including an unlikely demographic: senior citizens. Grossly overlooked on social, this age group is searching on Google, browsing Facebook News Feeds, and watching YouTube.

Currently:

• 45% of Internet users aged 65 and older use Facebook


• 23% of Internet users aged 50 and older use Pinterest


• 13% of Internet users aged 50 and older use Twitter

For many brands, this is a demographic you don’t want to ignore. Of course, it all depends on your product or service. While some won’t find value in targeting seniors, others — such as lifestyle or health-related brands — will want to take their presence into account when crafting outreach strategies.

3. LinkedIn Has Fewer Active Users Than Most Social Networks

Despite adding two new members every second, LinkedIn has a smaller percentage of active users than Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. As a result, passive content like blog posts, white papers, and slide decks are betting suited for your LinkedIn audience compared to more interactive content like contests or surveys.

4. 53% of Interactions Between Brands And Google+ Users Are Positive

Once labeled a “ghost town,” there are now more than 300 million people on Google+ actively engaging through +1s, shares, comments, and recommendations.

Social media consultancy Converseon studied 2,500 consumer interactions with 20 big brands across three social networks. The study found that Twitter ranked high (55%) for positive interactions and tied Facebook (20%) for negative interactions, while Google+ sits happily at 53% and 18%, respectively.

Depending on your industry and target audience, you don’t want to miss out on any of those interactions, regardless of whether they’re positive or negative. Make sure that you’re regularly monitoring Google+ for mentions of your business or product.

5. Hashtags: Less Is More, Except On Instagram

While hashtags are a popular way to identify themes or topics across social platforms, using too many can actually hurt your engagement rate. While Twitter and Facebook recommend using no more than two, Track Maven found that Instagram posts with 11 hashtags received the most interactions.

We should point out that this data represents Instagram accounts with less than 1,000 followers. For those with more than 1,000 followers, it appears that engagement leveled off around five hashtags, which is still more than recommended on Twitter or Facebook

6. 399 Million Facebook Members Are ‘Mobile Only’

Mobile now accounts for 62% of Facebook’s advertising revenue, which is quite the dramatic change considering it lacked mobile ads just two years ago. Just last year, the number of mobile-only users was 189 million. Now 399 million of the 1.32 billion people who use the social network do so from their mobile devices only.

It’s also worth noting that while Facebook’s monthly user base has grown 14% year over year, its mobile user base has grown 31% to more than 1 billion. If you’re not optimizing the content you’re sharing for mobile, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to hook viewers.

7. 30% Of Tweets Mentioning Your Company Don’t Include Your Twitter Handle

When you’re tracking conversations around your brand, bear in mind that not everyone will use your Twitter handle. If you’re not monitoring mentions without the @ symbol, you risk missing out on a significant portion of feedback. 30.72% to be exact.

It’s also worth noting that only 9% of tweets are actually directed at your brand. This means that more conversations are happening about you rather than with you. You have a great opportunity here to surprise your audience by weighing in.

If you don’t want to miss out on opportunities to delight a customer or collect valuable feedback, make sure that you’re tracking all variations of your brand name, with and without the @ symbol.

8. Engagement Is Strongest For Text Updates On Facebook

If you’ve ever wondered what types of content people typically engage with on Facebook, or any social network for that matter, you’re not alone. Digital agency Simply Zesty put together a study of some of the biggest Facebook Pages across 10 categories and found text to be the most popular option overall.

What’s even more surprising are the results from individual industries. While photos outperformed text in the auto, fashion, and healthy & beauty industries, text surprisingly exceeded all other mediums in the entertainment and music industries.

That doesn’t mean that if you belong to one of these industries that you must favor text updates above all else. Adding diversity to your content is important in order to maintain a healthy feed. But it’s worth considering when and how you’re incorporating different media into your content strategy. Make sure there’s purpose behind your decision to swap out a text update for a photo and vice versa.

9. Tweets With Fewer Than 100 Characters Get 17% More Engagement

Tweets perform better when they’re shorter. You’re already limited to only 140 characters, but tweets actually receive more engagement when you use even fewer. Research showed that keeping your tweet around 100 characters is ideal for engagement.

Although there’s no guarantee that every super short tweet will go viral, brevity is always appreciated. Plus, it gives your followers extra room to add their thoughts before retweeting.

10. Capitalization Drives More Traffic Back To Your Blog

If you use social media to drive traffic back to your blog, you’ll want to spend extra time crafting your headline. According to a Conductor study, 64% of people prefer the first letter of every word in the headline to be capitalized.

What’s more surprising is that 21% of those surveyed preferred all capitals. We certainly don’t recommend that you yell every headline to your readers, but it’s worth knowing that the formatting option resonates with some audiences.

11. More Than 3 Million Humor Pins Are Saved Each Day On Pinterest

Humor is one of the most popular and fastest growing categories on Pinterest. It also holds the top spot on Fridays. You might not think that your editorial calendar applies to Pinterest, but there’s actually a best day for everything on the site. Here’s how the company broke down the most popular categories on each day of the week:

• Monday – Fitness


• Tuesday – Technology


• Wednesday – Inspirational quotes


• Thursday – Fashion


• Friday – Humor


• Saturday – Travel


• Sunday – Food and craft ideas

This doesn’t mean you have to stick to a set schedule for pinning, but it’s interesting to know what’s trending throughout the week. We recommend looking at your analytics to get a better sense of what’s working for your profile. You might find a new category or two to add to your weekly rotation.

The post 11 Social Media Statistics You Should Have Known Yesterday appeared first on Sprout Social.