2017 Social Media Facts Facebook 1.01 billion monthly active users - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

2017 Social Media Facts

 Facebook  1.01 billion monthly active users as of October 23, 2012  2.07 billion monthly active users as of September 30, 2017  Twitter  175 million users as of September 30, 2012  330 million users as of September 30, 2017  Pinterest 11 million users, September 30, 2012  150 million users, September 30, 2017   Instagram  90 Million users September 30, 2012  800 Million users September 30, 2017  Spotify 15 million active users September 30, 2012  70 million active users September 30, 2017   YouTube  passed 4 billion daily video views in 2012  The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000 ‐ 2017  300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute ‐ 2017  Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day ‐ 2017  YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day ‐ 2017

 Social media ad spend surpasses TV  It isn’t surprising that Facebook dominated ad revenue in 2016, taking in 67.9 per cent of social media advertising spend. It was a rosy picture all round, with social media ad spend doubling worldwide over the past two years – rising from $16bn in 2014 to $31bn in 2016. Instagram is on track to generate $1.53 billion in mobile ad revenue worldwide in 2016. That’s an impressive year ‐ on ‐ year increase of 144 per cent.  Perhaps most significantly, though, it was predicted that digital ad spend in the U.S. would have surpassed television spend for the first time ever by the end of 2016.

Snapchat hits 10 billion daily video views  A Cisco study predicted that mobile video traffic will account for 75 per cent of total mobile data traffic by 2020. Video is arguably the future of social media and, according to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2016, 73 per cent of marketers plan on increasing their use of video in 2017, and 50 per cent plan on using live video in their marketing.  But how many will incorporate Snapchat into their video strategy? Data released last April revealed that users of the app were watching 10 billion videos per day. That figure had grown from 8 billion in just two months, and will likely continue growing as we move into 2017. Any brands continuing to omit Snapchat from their marketing strategy should make 2017 the year they get involved.

Twitter hits 313m users but growth stalls  Twitter didn’t enjoy the best of times in 2016, with monthly active user numbers stagnating after years of solid growth. Some have put the decline down to trolls, while eMarketer has attributed it to the rising popularity of Snapchat, Instagram and messaging apps.  But it need not be all doom and gloom. Analyst Oscar Orozco believes Twitter’s salvation lies in live video streaming, saying: “It has had success with live broadcasting and should continue to make deals to stream sports and political events. By continuing to invest in video, particularly live video, Twitter could potentially begin to more successfully monetize and grow its user base.”

Instagram adds 100m users in six months  Instagram certainly had a busy year in 2016. The Facebook ‐ owned photo app unveiled a whole host of new features, including Business Pages, Stories, Drafts, live video, URL links, updated safety tools and even a unified inbox with Facebook. All that progress tempted 100 million new users into downloading the app to join the 500 million already on board. The last time Instagram added 100 million users it took nine months – this time they did it in six.

Snapchat revenue to close in on $1b  There’s a whole host of stats that could illustrate just how popular Snapchat is right now. Not least the fact that its users post 9,000 snaps per second (that’s 777,600,000 snaps per day). But perhaps most significant has been the startling increase in ad revenue.  The app generated $366.69 million in ad revenues worldwide in 2016, an increase of 519 per cent from 2015. That figure is projected to hit $935.46 million in 2017. But what’s behind this eye ‐ catching increase? “Advertisers are attracted to Snapchat for its broad reach among young millennials and those in Generation Z, which are valuable demographic groups for many businesses,” said eMarketer principal analyst Cathy Boyle.

2018 Trends Facebook’s ad inventory  Facebook has more pressing issues to contend with right now, such as a diminishing ad inventory. Quite simply, it’s running out of space to display ads. The company confirmed early in 2017 that it had maxed out ads in new feeds, instead choosing to prioritize longer videos in timelines to improve the experience.  Facebook went on to introduce mid ‐ roll ads into those videos – giving it a whole new source of revenue. It also started selling Messenger ads, while also opening up its Marketplace platform to advertisers.  The company’s Q3 ad revenue slowed year ‐ on ‐ year from 59 per cent in 2016 to 47 per cent this year, which may have been part of a controlled strategy but will still inevitably lead to attempts to accelerate growth in 2018. Marketers should keep a close eye on further updates coming out of Menlo Park.

YouTube’s adpocalypse  In March this year, YouTube became mired in controversy when it was revealed that a number of advertisements were appearing on videos that promoted extremist, hateful and inappropriate content. A number of advertisers withdrew their business, and YouTube was left scrambling to reclassify videos in an attempt to appease them.  They got a little carried away in tightening up their policies, however, and many content creators ended up losing ad revenue as a result.  YouTube has since pushed out an update to correct their heavy ‐ handed approach. They expect 30 per cent fewer videos will have to make do with limited ads on their way to becoming fully monetised, which should lead to “millions” more videos raking in full income going into 2018.

B2B social measurement  B2B marketers were at the centre of a disturbing revelation this year, with almost two thirds ( 58 per cent ) of those who responded to a survey rating their ability to measure social media activity as between ‘average’ and ‘very poor’.  According to the Immediate Future survey, only seven per cent of respondents rated their ability to measure their social media activity as ‘very strong’, with just over a third describing it as ‘strong’. Happily, 67 per cent were confident that their ability to measure social will improve in the next two years.

Instagram Stories steals the show Poor old Snapchat. No longer seen as the cool new kid on the block, Instagram rubbed it in by stealing its lunch money. Instagram Stories can kindly be described as a ‘tribute’ to Snapchat’s own incarnation (even Instagram itself admits it’s a “duplication”), with the major difference between the two being the rate of growth enjoyed by the former. Instagram Stories raced to 100 million daily active users within two months of launch, and as of November this year that figure had soared to 300 million. That’s almost 150 million more than Snapchat’s entire daily userbase. What’s more, brands seem to prefer Instagram’s version. Research involving 89 companies found that marketers posted 1,347 Instagram Stories compared to 614 Snapchat Stories in July this year. During one week in particular, 41 per cent of marketers used Instagram Stories compared to 9 per cent who posted to Snapchat.

Live stream engagement on the rise  Live streaming has been a slow burner, but it looks like it’s finally taking off. Almost a third of internet users ( 28 per cent to be precise) had watched a live stream according to GlobalWebIndex data released in August. That was a hefty increase of 20 per cent on Q3 2016.  Just as importantly for brands, the amount of users engaging with live streams on social media had increased by nearly 10 per cent over the same period. If things continue at the same rate then 2018 is going to be a big year for live streaming, and your brand needs to make it a major part of its social media strategy.

Snapchat and Instagram ad spend It won’t be a surprise to most marketers that social media ad spend continues to rise. Data from 4C Insights revealed that spend was up significantly for both Snapchat and Instagram in Q3 2017, rising 73 per cent and 55 per cent respectively. Facebook (27 per cent) and Twitter (26 per cent) also enjoyed increases, with travel sector spend on Twitter generating 220 per cent year ‐ on ‐ year growth. But it was Instagram Stories that posted the biggest increase, enjoying a 220 per cent upturn in year ‐ on ‐ year ad spend.

Twitter character count  Twitter’s new 280 ‐ character limit was one of the biggest social media news stories of 2017. That said, only a select few were able to use it initially. Twitter declared themselves happy with that limited test and the extended limit has been rolled out globally.  But how does the Twittersphere feel about the controversial update? Well, research by Morning Consult found that people are largely positive. In the survey of 2,201 US adults, just 13 per cent opposed the move, with 30 per cent supportive (the rest had no opinion).  What’s more, 17 per cent said the increased character limit made them more likely to tweet, while 20 per cent agreed that they would be more likely to check Twitter as a result of the change.