How do you evaluate social media sites? Is it number of times accessed in a day, the demographics of visitors, or how fast hose sites are growing? The answer, of course, is all of the above. The popularity and growth of social media sites is constantly changing. If you go back far enough, you’d find that MySpace was the number one site, but over time that changed to Facebook and Twitter. And most recently, we have seen two new sites, Instagram and Pinterest, which are changing the popularity of some sites.
Most people are aware of the three perennially favorite social media sites which are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. In 2013, 73% of online adults used social media sites. The latest study called the Pew Internet and American Life Project survey, found that 63% of Facebook users check in at least once a day.
Engagement
Social media experts use the term engagement not to refer to marriage proposals but instead to how often a website is viewed. In that context, Facebook is the most engaging with 63% of users saying they check the site daily and 40% log in more than once a day. While the popularity of Facebook is probably not a surprise to most, what may be a surprise are the two relatively new sites which garnered the second and fourth positions. According to Pew, while Facebook was accessed by 63% of people daily, Instagram was the second most popular being accessed 57%, Twitter was accessed 46%, Pinterest was accessed 23% and LinkedIn was accessed 13%.
Demographics
It was interesting in the Pew study to see the relatively low percentage of people who accessed LinkedIn on a daily basis. The reason of course is that LinkedIn is dedicated to business professionals, which is a small percentage of the overall social media user group. But it’s also important to take into account the demographics of different sites to better target your audience. For example, Facebook has 84% of the 18 to 29 year olds, most live in urban areas, have some college education, and make less than $50,000 a year.
LinkedIn is composed mostly of men aged 30-64, who are college educated with incomes over $75,000. In contrast, Pinterest followers are mostly women 18 to 49 who are college educated and have an income of over $75,000. Twitter and Instagram cater more to younger people with more moderate incomes.
Growth
In addition to how often sites are accessed in the demographics of those users, it’s also worthwhile to note how quickly sites are growing. According to a report by GlobalWeb Index, Instagram grew 23% in active users in 2013, Reddit grew 13%, and LinkedIn grew 9%.
There are other sites that are likely to grow in 2014.
- Google+ is relatively new after its debut in the summer of 2011.
- YouTube is clearly the hottest video site and is often the storage site for anyone using videos.
- Foursquare is a location-based social network that allows you to check in or search for places that support eating or meeting friends.
- Tumblr is a microblogging site like Twitter which focuses more on picture sharing.
- Reddit is an interesting site that allows people to post content and vote on content.