Viewed in the beginning as no more than a fad that teenagers did in their room after school, social media has come a long way in the past 5 years. Today, social media has become our news outlet, our contact list, our resume, our comic relief, our source for inspiration and most importantly our way to connect with one and other. It is believed that more than 3 billion people are on social media today.
With social media advertising becoming a multibillion dollar industry, social media has gone far beyond Facebook and Twitter, with countless niche networks popping up for almost every aspect of our lives. Altogether there are more than 300 different social networks with 17 of them having more than 100 million active users. A new infographic published by Visual.ly provides a great snapshot for marketers and business owners to analyze the most predominant trends in when planning their social media strategy
How to plan your Social Media Strategy:
Looking at this information, there are a few questions each marketer and content creator needs to ask when planning a social media strategy for 2014:
What age demographic am I going after?
The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year age bracket, with a growth of 79% since 2012. For Facebook and Google Plus, it’s 45 to 54 year olds that are joining in the most. If it’s the younger demographic you want, photo sharing platforms like Instagram and Snapchat is where you should be looking with recent polls showing that 26% of U.S phone owners between the ages of 18-29 are using Snapchat, while 43% of them are on Instagram (or both).
The most active group on social media is mothers with young children under the age of 5, and they are most active on Twitter and Pintrest. Pintrest in general is used more by Women (69% of users) while Google+ has more male users (67%).
How can I make my message more mobile friendly?
With more than 4 billion users accessing social media on their mobile devices, it is important to know how to get your target audiences’ fingers to stop scrolling down. Some social networks like Instagram and Snapchat are almost only mobile, yet Facebook is still the most active social media on mobile with 751 million users checking their profile almost daily on their phones. Twitter’s mobile usage is up to 60% of all users, while only 27% of Linkedin users check their account regularly and mobile phones.
How can your message pass visually?
Photos are the most shared media format on almost all social platforms. With more than 250 million photos uploaded to Facebook each day and more than 5 million photos on Instagram, every marketer and content creator needs to think in advance how to make his message more visual. This is esspecally important as Pinterest is the fastest growing social network with growth rates of 88% over the last 12 months.
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