25 Social Media Stats That Prove It’s Still Worth Your Time

Dina Shuqom

In 2013, we shared with you 100 Social Media Stats to present the fact that social media should not be ignored in your marketing campaign. This was only two years ago, but in social media world, it feels more like 10 years. Due to social media’s ever-evolving nature, we decided to update the list and share with you some new stats about social media and how it is being used in the digital marketing world today.

Lead Generation:

At the end of the day, the goal of all marketing campaigns is to generate leads, or else it won’t be worth your time and money. Social media presence is now one of the most essential elements of a company’s branding and digital marketing campaigns:

1. 54% of B2B marketers said they have generated leads from social media (CMO)
   
2. 34% of marketers use Twitter to successfully generate leads (Jeff Bullas)
   
3. 85% of B2B buyers believe companies should present information via social networks (Iconsive)
   
4. Marketers will spend $ 8.3 billion on social media advertising in 2015 (NewsCred)

Social Influence on Purchasing Decisions:

With the growth of social media over the past few years, consumers are utilizing social channels to provide their feedback on products and brands. If you’re attempting to intersect the buying process at some point in the consumer’s decision-making cycle, you should know how influential social media channels are. You just can’t compete with the authenticity of social media recommendations:

5. 93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media- because 90% trust peer recommendations (Socialnomics)
   
6. 63% of millennials say they stay updated on brands through social networks; 51% say social opinions influence their purchase decisions; and 46% “count on social media” when buying online (Leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)
   
7. Pinterest grabs 41% of the e-commerce traffic compared to Facebook’s 37% (Rocket Post)
   
8. 47% of Americans say Facebook is their #1 influencer of purchases (Jeff Bullas)

Social Spending:

For everyone who thinks Social Media doesn’t have an impact on spending, be ready to be proven wrong:

9. 85% of social media purchases are by Facebook users (Digital Information World)
   
10. S. social media ad spend will top $ 8.5 billion in 2015 and reach nearly $ 14 billion in 2018, up from just $ 6.1 billion in 2013 (Business Insider)
    
11. 78% of companies now say they have dedicated social media teams, up from 67% in 2012 (i-SCOOP)
    
12. Spending on social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter, currently represents 9% of marketing budgets and is expected to increase to more than 13% over the next 12 months. In the next five years, that percentage is projected to rise to more than 21% (WSJ)

Video:

As they say, “Content is King” and video is one of the most powerful marketing content pieces these days. But to maximize its impact, you will need to use social channels to share this content. Otherwise, it will be confined to a small audience and won’t be nearly as effective:

13. Among the largest social media sites, YouTube drives the most highly engaged website traffic (VentureBeat)
    
14. Posts with videos attract three times as many inbound links as plain text posts (NewsCred)
    
15. In just one year, the number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the U.S. (Facebook Media)
    
16. 75% of smartphone owners watch videos on their phones; 26% at least once a day (NewsCred)

Demographics:

With social media’s global reach, it is nearly impossible to find a demographic that you cannot reach these days:

17. 89% of 18-29 year-olds are active on social media, as are 43% of adults 65 and older (Jeff Bullas)
    
18. Over 70% of US online adults use some form of social media networking (PewInternet)
    
19. 72% of all internet users are now active on social media (Jeff Bullas)
    
20. 71% of online adults use Facebook. 63% of Facebook users visit daily and 40% visit multiple times per day (Heidi Cohen)

Importance of Mobile:

Finally, the most drastic changes that occurred over the past few years are in the mobile sector. If you’re not mobile, you practically don’t exist. At least, you won’t exist for much longer. Stop resisting: everyone is going mobile and you need to be ready:

21. Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase (Rocket Post)
    
22. 80% of Twitter active users are on mobile (Jeff Bullas)
    
23. 64% of decision-makers read their e-mail via mobile devices (Mark the Marketer)
    
24. 71% of users access social media from a mobile device (Jeff Bullas)
    
25. 50% of millennials use their smartphones to research products or services while shopping and 41% have made purchases using their phones (Leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

Based on these new stats, we can easily say that social media cannot be ignored. It is now considered an important element in every company’s marketing campaign. However, in order to have an effective social media presence, it is essential that you clearly understand your target customers and the social media channels that they are actively using. That way, you can focus your efforts on these customers and channels to result in a more effective campaign.

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