Social Media Statistics Update

At the end of the Q4 of 2022, there were 4.9 billion people globally who use one or more social media platforms daily (Forbes, 2022).

An average person spends 145 minutes every day on social media (Workup, 2022).

Short-form video will remain the top marketing content format for 2023, it has the highest ROI and growth rate, with 90% of marketers now using this media format (HubSpot, 2023).

Facebook

• Facebook has remained the most-used social media platform with 2.98 billion monthly active users as of Q1 of 2023, a 7.18% increase year on year (Dean, 2023).
• On average 78.63% of these users use the platform daily, equivalent to 1.9 billion (Dean, 2023).

Instagram

• At the end of 2022, it was estimated that there were 1.28 billion monthly users, it has been forecasted there will be an increase to 1.44 billion (Dixon, 2022).
• Static images posted on Instagram achieved an average reach of 1,850 users and carousels reached an average of 2,325 users (Dixon, 2022).

YouTube

• At the end of 2022 there were 2.5 million active monthly users (Omicore, 2023)
• The average time spent on YouTube globally is 19 minutes daily (Omicore, 2023)
• 500 billion YouTube videos are watched daily (Omicore, 2023)

Twitter

• In 2022, there were 229 million daily active users, this is a 15.9% increase compared to 2021 (Oberlo, 2023).
• On average, 500 million tweets are shared daily (Oberlo, 2023).
• 6 out of 10 (59.2%) Twitter users globally are between 25 and 49 years old (Statista, 2021)

TikTok

• TikTok had 1.6 billion active monthly users at the end of 2022 and is estimated to reach 1.8 billion by the end of 2023 (Kurve, 2023)
• Gen Z dominates TikTok, with 83% using the platform in Q1 2023 (Kurve, 2023)
• TikTok is the most engaging social media platform, with an average session length of 10.85 minutes, the time spent on TikTok globally in 2022 was a mammoth 68 billion hours.
• Over 1 billion videos are viewed daily (Kurve, 2023)
• TikTok has the highest engagement rate 4.25% compared to Instagram 0.60% (Kurve, 2023)

If you need some help with any areas of your marketing, get in touch by emailing us on [email protected]

Have you heard about the new Women’s Safety Hub on Facebook?

It has been announced that Facebook has pulled together its own team of female experts to help combat women’s safety on Facebook. The social media platform have stated that they believe women should have equal access to all economic opportunity, education and social connections that the internet provides. They’ve taken a comprehensive approach to making their platform a safer place for women. These security changes are applicable to Facebook business pages and groups.

Found on gov.uk the Home Secretary has noted that there are increasing reports of abuse and extreme sexism surfacing in the use of online forums, social media platforms and newer apps.

The hub hopes to be a place for all security resources that will help keep women safe from online abuse. These resources include tools such as comment control, keyword blockers, video on demand training and new procedures to help the public remove inappropriate content.

Amnesty.org has listed some of the main issues that are created from the online harassment of women on social media; apprehension using the internet, a sense of powerlessness and feeling a threat to physical safety. They gathered their statistics from an online survey comprised of women aged between 18-55 in eight different countries.

As Facebook is the biggest social media platform with over 2.85 billion users, it is vital that they take the lead in keeping women safe online.

Ad spend to shift from Facebook to Instagram

Brands head to Instagram to spend their ad budget in 2019, with more advertisers preferring it over Facebook.

Instagram is becoming an increasingly attractive place for brands to splosh some dosh and the numbers suggest this trend will continue into 2019. With advertisers increasingly turning their backs on Facebook’s News Feed and making better friends with Instagram’s Stories.

According to Socialbakers, ad spend on Instagram increased in 2018 while decreasing on Facebook, driven by hard-to-rival engagement levels on the photo-sharing platform.

While Instagram has a smaller audience size compared to its parent company, its users are far more engaged. Suggesting that Instagram is the go-to for capturing quality engagement within smaller communities.

Last year, Instagram posts continued to reach and garner more impressions per fan than its Stories feature (around 15% and 25% more, respectively).

However, the volume of brands posting on Stories has quadrupled over the last year, with brands investing 212% more in Stories compared with the previous year.

A quarter (25%) of brands’ Instagram ad spend now goes on Stories. This will continue to grow through 2019. As just a few examples, easyJet recently made it possible for users to find and book holidays simply by clicking on a photo, while Spotify, SoundCloud and Shazam are offering their services via Stories. Expect to see more of this integration in the coming months, especially as Instagram promises to enhance its ecommerce features.

Alice Cuffe, editor at We Are Social, says while no one can argue that the specialised and detailed targeting of Facebook is appealing to advertisers, when it comes to creative innovation, Instagram Stories has the edge.

“Instagram has evolved Stories to allow brands to connect with audiences in a space where they feel comfortable enough to express their truest, least curated selves,” she explains.

“While Facebook is simple and reliable, Stories is currently owning the reactive space.  Functionalities such as polls, questions, emoji sliders and swipe-up links all provide an easy and immediate way to connect with your audience and allow them to react to your brand in the moment. The temporary nature of Stories also means brands have more freedom to experiment, without necessarily requiring heavy design work or rounds of internal concepting.”

Interested in how we can help with your marketing?

Talk to our team on 02921 320 200 or [email protected]

If you want to find our more about social media advertising, click here.

Source: https://www.marketingweek.com/2019/01/04/five-trends-media-2019/?cmpid=em~newsletter~breaking_news~n~n&utm_medium=em&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=breaking_news&eid=7065287&sid=MW0001&adg=5C1E1BD4-B878-43B7-9CA5-52C2F49301DB&nocache=true&adfesuccess=1

Improve the way you use Facebook for business

The latest blog from Cardiff media consultants, The Media Angels. This week, we’re looking at how you can improve the way you’re business uses Facebook.

1. Add information to your page – opening times, what you do, contact details, website address

Facebook is probably the most customisable platforms you can use for your business. In settings, there are many templates you can choose from which suggest different features to highlight in order to get the most out of your page. You can modify your homepage to show a custom button, it could be “Visit our website” or “Book now”, depending on your business. You can also set a photo reel to show at the top of your page, and pin important posts to the top of your timeline. Your cover photo is also an important feature, unlike in LinkedIn, you get quite a lot of space to use and so it’s important to make the most of it. We try and change ours depending on events or the seasons.

2. Use analytics – see when your followers are most active, what posts generate the most interest

As with most social media platforms, it’s important to utilise analytics. Facebook’s are quite in-depth and you are able to see; page views, post reach and how recent posts have performed. This is helpful as it let’s you see which post format works the best for your page. Are they it photos, polls, blogs? You can also see an overview of your competitor’s pages, allowing you to see how their pages are performing in comparison.

3. Check out your competitors – what do they do, what posts work for them

On that note, it’s important to see what your competitors are up to! How active are they on social media? Are you using the same social media platforms as they are? Have a look at their pages and see what posts are working for them.

4. Use different formats – pictures, statistics, polls, light-hearted posts…

We find it helps to use a variety of post formats, to keep our page varied. Facebook has a lot of formats you can choose from including polls, pictures, carousels etc. We also try and vary between light-hearted posts and statistics or blogs from the industry. This helps get our personality across but also keep in touch with market news.

5. Use Facebook tools to make your life easier!

On Facebook you can schedule posts to upload at a set time and date. We find this feature helpful for finding out when our followers are most active and what times our posts get the best engagement. For our pages it varies from platform to platform, for example our Instagram page gets better engagement if we post in the evening but our Facebook and Twitter works better in the morning and afternoon. This is a trial and error process to see when your posts do their best, but it is worth doing!

UK government to hit Facebook, Google and Amazon with digital services tax

The government will soon impose a ‘digital services tax’ on UK revenues generated by “established tech giants” like Facebook, Google and Amazon.

The 2% levy was announced by chancellor Philip Hammond in the Autumn budget today (29 October). It will come into force in 2020 following a period of consultation.

The announcement follows on from heavy criticism about the amount of tax tech behemoths pay to the treasury. In most instances they are gleaned from ad revenues – in comparison to their UK profit.

How much tax do tech giants pay?

Facebook UK revenues: £1.26bn Tax: £15.8m (2017)

Amazon UK revenues: £72m Tax: £4.5m (2017)

Google UK revenues: £1bn Tax: £36.4m (2016)

Snapchat UK revenues: £26m Tax: £360K (15 months to Dec 2016)

Twitter UK revenues: £76m Tax: £1.2m (2015)

Without going into detail, Hammond said the levy wouldn’t apply to “small UK startups.” But instead be targeted at profitable digital services companies that generate “at least £500m a year in global revenue”.

Kill or cure? 

Ahead of the announcement, IAB chief executive Jon Mew argued that such a levy risked harming the UK digital ad market.

“While the government has said it wants to focus new measures on larger businesses, it would be difficult to avoid collateral damage across the sector and a negative effect on competition,” Mew warned.

“A tax on revenue would create a disincentive for competitors to set up and grow in the UK market. And would impact on mid-market players who drive competition and provide choice.”

Mew suggested that if the government was truly committed to leading the charge on innovation-friendly regulation that supports the growth of the tech sector then it should focus on supporting efforts to accelerate the EU Commission and OECD process to agree to an international approach to digital taxation.

Source: The Drum 

Facebook announces WhatsApp adverts

It’s currently a free platform enjoyed by nearly two billion people.

But users can expect a significant change in their experience of WhatsApp, next year – when Facebook bosses plan to flood it with adverts.

The Android and iOS chat app, which was originally released in 2009, will start to embed paid-for content in the app’s Status feature from 2019. 

It comes five years after Mark Zuckerberg’s company bought the platform from co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton for a whopping £22billion.

Both Koum and Acton later quit Facebook, citing differences with the social media company.

Insiders believe they were unhappy that their beloved product – which was originally marketed as advert-free and end-to-end encrypted – would soon host commercial content at the expense of users’ privacy.  

Specifically, although the latter will remain unchanged, the men were unhappy that Facebook wanted to share data across platforms in order to customise the adverts.

Source: The Daily Mail 

What do you think about the prospect of advertising on WhatsApp?

Facebook Revenue Continues to Increase

Facebook’s advertising revenue has increased 63% year-on-year to $6.24 billion in the second quarter of this year.

Video is the main driver behind this surge in revenue according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg who says that video is at the heart of Facebook services.

For the three months ending in June, Facebook posted $6.44 billion in revenue, a 59% increase on Q2 2015, while profit rocketed by 189% to $2.06 billion year on year.

84% of revenue stream is attributed to mobile up 76% from last year, enhancing the impact that mobile has on the user.

The number of daily active users continues to increase, 17%  up in June to 1.13 billion users on average a day.

The platforms in which we use to deliver our campaigns are continuously evolving, The Media Angel team keep updated with all current developments to get the best outcomes for our clients. Get in touch  today to discuss the best channels for your marketing campaign.

Tips and Stats from Facebook’s Boost your Business Cardiff Event

We went along to the Facebook’s Boost your Business Summer Tour at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. If you couldn’t make it, here are some of our essential stats and top tips.

We listened to talks from the panel which included Facebook’s Olly Sewell, Manager of the SMB Partner Management in EMEA, Jules White from The Last Hurdle,  Justin Schwartz from the social media agency behind Rachel Organics. Did you know…

• 25m people use Facebook on mobile in the UK every day.
• People visit Facebook on average 14 times per day via mobile.
• Facebook attracts 4bn video views every day.
• At least 50% of users watch one video per day.
• The future is sight, sound and motion.
• Instagram marketing solutions will launch from this September.

10 top tips when using Facebook advertising:

1. Use the power of short videos to captivate your audience.
2. With all your messaging, think about what your customers want to hear and see more so than what you want them.
3. Set your objectives to gain meaningful results, such as website clicks, video views, events, and increase in sales. Focus on gaining real numbers, it’s not always just about likes and shares.
4. The best kind of content is ‘real’ content and that really works. Think as the end user.
5. When advertising you need to balance relevance and quality of ads with your bidding strategy and budget.
6. Schedule offers when your audience needs them.
7. Consider seasonality, e.g. Valentine’s Day or Christmas. You need to think carefully about when other like-minded businesses will all be trying to advertise at the same time.
8. Don’t under estimate the worth of your audience. It can cost more to reach the same popular audiences at the same time.
9. Use custom audiences to reach all of the people who matter to you.
10. Think yourself as a mobile business, as this is where you customers spend most of their time.

If you need help incorporating social media as part of your marketing campaigns, then please get in touch. We’re always on hand to take care of your marketing. Email: [email protected] or call: 02921 320 200.