General Social Networking Stats for 2012
- 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 – average 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), France (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%)
Source: Cara Pring of The Social Skinny