It's been more than twelve months since I rounded up some of the more impressive social media stats and pieces of data. But what's happened since then?
Clearly, social media is big, it's still getting bigger, and as a broad digital channel, is not going to disappear anytime soon.
While the value of this type of statisitical information can be questioned, especially when considering the place of social media within a business structure, I think it serves to highlight simply how massive the channel is as a whole.
I think it also indicates the rapid growth seen amongst certain platforms, which in the physical world would generally never happen. But that in itself is a separate area of discussion. For now, here's some fresh mind-blowing stats...
Then: Twitter has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis.
Now: Twitter now officially claims to have 175m registered users, although it's unclear what percentage regularly user the service.
Then: LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide.
Now: Officially, Linkedin has grown 100%, now having over 100m professionals who use the platform worldwide.
Then: Facebook has 350 million active users on global basis.
Now: Facebook officially hit the half-billion member mark last year. According to figures from Socialbakers, there are now some 640m Facebook users worldwide.
Then: 50% of active users log into Facebook each day. This means at least 175m users every 24 hours.
Now: Still citing the 50% active rate, using the official 500m figure, this means at least 250m users every 24 hours. This is more than a 40% increase in 12 months.
Then: Flickr hosts more than 4bn images.
Now: Flickr continues to grow at a steady rate, having increased by some 25% in the last twelve months. At the end of 2010, it was hosting more than 5bn images.
Then: Wikipedia has 14m articles and 85,000 contributors.
Now: Wikipedia now has more 17m articles. The site now has an army of 91,000 active contributors.
Then: 65m users access Facebook through mobile-based devices.
Now: It may well be the year of mobile... For Facebook. Users accessing the site through mobile devices now tops 200m - an enormous 200% increase in around a twelve-month period.
Then: There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook.
Now: Clearly, Facebook is still growing: More than 30bn pieces of content is shared each month, which is an average of 7bn pieces a week.
Then: There are 11m LinkedIn users across Europe.
Now: Go Europe! There are now 20m+ EU Linkedin members.
Then: The average number of tweets per day was over 27m.
Now: Twitter now states that 95m tweets are written each day. This is a staggering 250% increase.
Then: The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3m.
Now: At the new rate of growth, its calculated that there are nearly 4m tweets per hour.
Some extra nuggets...
- More than 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.
- Flickr members upload more than 3,000 images every minute.
- More than one million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages (formerly known as company profiles).
- The average Facebook user creates 90 pieces of content each month.
- There are more than 2bn video views on YouTube every 24 hours.
- There were nearly 2bn people searches on Linkedin during 2010.
- People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
- People on Facebook install 20m applications every day.
[Image credit: macinate]
Recommended reports
UK Social Media Statistics
Econsultancy's UK Social Media Statistics document is one of 11 individual downloads that make up Econsultancy’s UK Internet Statistics Compendium, a comprehensive compilation of statistics and online market research with data, facts, charts and figures that are essential to understanding the marketplace as a whole.
Alternatively, see our Social Media Management Systems Buyer’s Guide or B2B Content Marketing Best Practice Guide.
2:04PM on 25th March 2011
It really is unbelievable how much growth social media had as a whole in the past year. But that makes me wonder when it is going to start plateauing. If someone doesn't have a Facebook page by now, I don't see them getting one any time soon. Is social media growth going to slow down in 2011?
5:44PM on 25th March 2011
@Nick, just in the past month, I have had four personally known people add me to their brand-new Facebook accounts. I think it might very well plateau at some point as you say, but I doubt it will be this year.
10:48PM on 25th March 2011
Great stats! Thanks for compiling. It is amazing to see the growth, both business and personal on all of these social media sites. Can't wait to see next year's comparison!
11:51AM on 26th March 2011
Wow this really does show how big business social media is!
It goes to show the opportunities available if you can utilise this efficiently!
I've been struggling with blog viewers, but when you look at the potential social media has, I will definitely be working hard on facebook, twitter and youtube to try and utilise the huge potential!
I guess when you see how many people there are on these sorts of sites it also goes to show how easily something can become viral!!
8:15AM on 27th March 2011
Thanks for the break down, those statistics go a long way in determining where true impact is originating. For instance I never knew that LinkedIn had become so powerful. I am now wondering if there will be any change in the guard, as the current social media stalwarts are so set. Will a new social media start-up ever be able to compete, or even feature against the present social media climate?
9:15AM on 28th March 2011
Thanks for sharing the numbers! All social media networks are growing rapidly and we access them differently today than a year ago as well. Do you have similar figures on how mobile is used to access LinkedIn and other networks? Also, I would suspect that the device we use has an impact on our behaviour, and hence results and conversions from social media. Any thoughts on that?
Head of SEO at Bluestorm Design
9:26AM on 28th March 2011
An incredible collection of stats. With the rate of increase being so rapid, it is pointless using statistics that are 3 months out of date as they'll give an incorrect representation to the social media groups.
A big congrats to LinkedIn! They have come along brilliantly with their offering over the last year and you can certainly see that more people are jumping on the wagon.
640 million for Facebook, with my maths, that about 1 in 12 people in THE WORLD, an incredible achievement.
Director at WSI Yorkshire
11:23AM on 28th March 2011
Some Great Numbers, Looking forward to next year's numbers.
Next Year?
Facebook Search Stats?
Facebook Business?
Mobile?
Also interesting what it doesn't say e.g Active Twitter Users
& Who will be the new kids on the block?
Will Google ever crack social media?
2:04PM on 28th March 2011
I agree that the mobile stats look the most encouraging. This mirrors an article I read recently predicting that using your mobile to access the internet will be the norm as apposed to home computers.
2:49PM on 28th March 2011
Very nice stats. Just forwarding this around others at work.
Regards,
Andy
3:53PM on 28th March 2011
Good work Hird. I can feel an infographic coming on...
7:47PM on 28th March 2011
Fascinating stuff, and the numbers continue to be astonishing. Although I do wonder how much of the content posted to Facebook is actually just auto-generated though. For example via Foursquare and other syndicated content?
12:27AM on 29th March 2011
Great stats for anyone who questions the viability of social media. I think Matt's question about at what membership# does FB plateau at? And with that statement will LinkedIn hit really big numbers this year ? 250 million??
12:21PM on 29th March 2011
Where's the infographic?!!
3:08PM on 29th March 2011
It's time for social media to evolve beyond shadowy corporations that store and use your private information to drive advertisements and spam. Check out INCLIQ.com for a better, safer alternative.
4:51PM on 31st March 2011
The stats pretty much show the totality on how big and how amazing that social media is growing more and more each year. Looking forward to see the figures for the next year.
7:18AM on 1st April 2011
It's time to Social Media, and that's the reason cuz of all marketing depts have a budget to improve their strategies.
Great article Sergio!
8:56AM on 1st April 2011
Everything really changes so fast in this world even little things grow faster. No wonder that social media would be the talk of the town soon.
10:54AM on 1st April 2011
What great information - thank you.
If you've just read this, you should also read the post called 'Social Media and SEO massively undervalued.'
Both posts combined suggest that whilst 'everyone is doing it', only a handful marketers are tapping into the commercial benefits.
As always, the SEO guys are appear more clued up.
3:41PM on 1st April 2011
Great stats, but here's an even MORE amazing one: the rise in social media use, and its successful monetization by savvy business owners, has pumped an addition $25,246,998,023 into the U.S. economy during the past year!
April Fools! :-)
But I WOULD love to know how the growth of social media is affecting the bottom lines of small businesses. Anyone seen any stats on THAT?
10:10PM on 5th April 2011
i would love to make money on linm with a real deal i dont have a spend a thing just make the money
10:49PM on 12th April 2011
I need to make some money, can you help me and how fast? I am not putting a penny on anything.
Thanks
11:37AM on 13th April 2011
Great stats assembled!!! Thanx!
12:32PM on 12th August 2011
HI I'm a planner and this is really cool info.
Thanks loads.
Alex
Twitter BarclayBarclay
11:42PM on 6th September 2011
How do you think Google + will fit into the statistics? Do they ever have a chance at surpassing Facebook?
12:01PM on 13th December 2011
Wow, those statistics show how social media is still in its infancy, who knows how big it will get!
9:37AM on 3rd January 2012
Yes, agree with SEO Services, it would be good to see where Google +, circles activity etc fits in, when this data becomes available