In order to do that, we need to be able to talk sensibly about the platforms and channels we want to use for our campaigns.  

Our own internal analytics can help, but sometimes we need external statistics to make a case for entering a new market.

In this post I’ll highlight a few useful resources for global marketing data, but obviously don’t forget to check out Econsultancy’s Internet Statistics Compendium.

Global stats resources

So, for example, we may want to advertise on new social platforms, but in order to justify the spend we need to show its relative popularity. 

And to this, we might see a great stat for the relative growth of Pinterest and Instagram – both of which are outperforming LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook.

 

But depending on where you are, you may find out that the data is not based on the countries that you target.

That’s right – the data showing the rise of Pinterest and LinkedIn is based on a US telephone survey.  

Now it’s not totally useless as US trends can be indicative of what is going to happen globally. And it’s not too far-fetched, in some cases, to say so.

But should someone in our audience take a closer look, they may think that we were either being sloppy with our data collection or, even worse, using US stats to be deliberately misleading.

So a source of global stats is rather useful when trying to explain to people what’s happening in markets outside of the US.

In order to help you find the info you need to build your case, we have found four sites which provide useful data about digital, web, social, and mobile usage for the Asia-Pacific region and other non-US locations.

1. We Are Social

Some of the most recognizable charts of global internet information are from the Singapore social media agency, We Are Social.  

The company’s visual style – black backgrounds with colourful bars – grace the PowerPoint presentations of many digital marketers.

WAS regularly publishes guides to Social, Digital, and Mobile and collects stats from many different sources and presents them in a bright, easy-to-read fashion.  

Even the most senior of business people will get your message with information presented so clearly.

 WAS also break down many of the figures into regional and country statistics, so you can be quite precise about the market you are addressing.

WAS charts are available in a Slideshare that is on the site here, and you can use the charts as long as you reference We Are Social as the chart source.

2. Statista

Another source of data, graphs, and charts which many global marketers will find useful is Statista.

Statista integrates data on 80,000 topics from 18,000 sources, but for marketers the most important thing is that Statista assembles the data and makes it useful.

What this means is that Statista offers both marketing data and other, business-related data making it easier to build marketing cases which involve more complicated statistics.

Here’s one graph which shows the penetration of various social networks in Australia using data from WAS, IAB Singapore, as well as GWI, covered below.

 

Where Statista really shines is when you have to go cross-discipline and find something quite unusual to spice up a presentation.

3. GlobalwebIndex

Globalwebindex (GWI) is a UK-based agency which collects social media, website, and device usage in 34 countries, including most in Asia, which helps marketers identify audiences globally.

Using the data, GWI offer reports and insight, but it also offers subscribers the ability to construct queries on the data to make custom reports.

Here’s one I put together very quickly about social media usage in Singapore vs. Australia.

 

Because of this capability, many other agencies use GWI as the source of their data, so you will see them referred to quite often.

Another interesting aspect of its data is that GWI profiles individuals and how they use media so it can report on actual usage, not just users.  

Here’s an example from the GWI Trends 2016 report.

Definitely a good source if you are looking for a lot of detail about a particular network or country.

4. Socialbakers

And finally we have Socialbakers, which tracks, analyzes, and benchmarks social media usage across all major social platforms.

What this means is that Socialbakers can show you much more than just the current fan count.  

It tracks usage over time, so it can tell you who is growing in social media prominence across countries, industries, and different timeframes.

Here is an example of which airlines have had the most growth on Facebook in the past week.

In addition to stats, Socialbakers also provides reporting and workflow which allows you to customize and schedule report about your social performance, as well as the competition’s.

They offer quite a lot of data for free, so definitely check them out the next time you’re preparing company-based social media statistics.

So…

Hopefully this list of resources will help you compile better marketing reports, wherever you are. 

Too often, we tend to use the same set of statistics and our presentations can become repetitive.

Using one of these sites will certainly liven up your data and help you make a more interesting and compelling case when you are presenting to your colleagues or business sponsors.