It’s becoming clearer and clearer to businesses that social media is a must. No longer can they keep their heads in the sand and pretend like conversations aren’t happening online about them, but instead need to participate.
However, it is also important to know social media is not a one-size fits all space. Depending on your goals, and how your different consumer segments use and share content, you need to customize where you go and what you share to fit your business’ (as well as consumers) needs.
Here is a great report from Neilson on the State of the Media for Q3 of 2011. This is a good place to start when identifying where you need to be in regards to where your consumer is online.
Key things to note:
- Social media dominates people’s time online
- The majority of internet users are on social networks
- Facebook is still #1
- 40% use mobile devices to access social networks
- Social network apps are a hit – they are the 3rd most used apps. Games = #1, Weather = #2
- 55+ are the quickest growing user segment
- Both men and women view videos online, but men stream more and watch longer
- 70% of users of social networks shop online
- 53% of social network users follow brands
- Social networks/blogs reach over 75% of internet users
- Tumblr’s audience has tripled in a year
