Here at Big Biscuits HQ we have been compiling a list of some of the best statistics, facts and predictions relating to social media from 2012 and for 2013. 

We hope you find them insightful! 

You can also follow us on Twitter where we will be tweeting these throughout January via @BigBiscuitsHQ

Social Networks

• The male and female split on social networks is bang on 50%
• US Presidential election & London Olympics helped boost global advertising spend in Q3 2012 by 4.3 per cent 
• Olympics & the Jubilee, both of which saw heavy coverage on social media, may have been a driver in recruiting new users for 2013 in the UK  
• On social networks, 69% of follows are suggested by friends
• The  untapped business value of social media is $1.3 trillion, most of which comes from improved office productivity
• 34% of marketers have generated business using social media 
• Social Media is the number 1 activity on the web
• Only 14% of users trust advertising opposed to 90% who trust recommendations online

Predictions

• Mobile Internet users are set to overtake wired users by 2015 in the US
• Mobile Usage Will Continue Soar
• Niche Social Networks Will Experience Dramatic Growth in 2013
• Traditional banner ads will be replaced by innovative offerings like Promoted Tweets and Sponsored Stories
• The coming year will see the emergence of new software and tools that manage all the overwhelming data from social media
• In 2013, expect to see more digital coursework at universities, as well as dedicated social media MBA programs
• In 10 years, over 40% of the Fortune500 companies will no longer be here. A negative factor towards this is their lack of digital and mobile focus
• By 2013, social games will buy $6 billion in virtual social goods

YouTube

• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world!
• Every minute, 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube

Pinterest

• Females are doing the majority of pinning with 80% of #Pinterest users who are female
• Pinterest was the big noise during 2012, but the UK Pinterest population was a tiny fraction of that in the US
• On Pinterest, 80% of pins are re-pins 
• Pins with prices get 36% more pins than those without

Instagram

• Instagram saw its share of social media traffic grow by 17,319 percent last year 
• Instagram is currently ranked 6th amongst UK social media sites by visits, with 1.46% of all social media activity 
• More than 5 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every 24 hours

Google+

• 135 million people are actively posting on G+ 
• Websites using the +1 Button increase page traffic by 350% 
• The Google+ button is used 5 million times a  day

Facebook

• The proportion of the UK population registered with Facebook has gone over the 50% mark for the first time, and now sits at just under 53%
• Facebook UK loses 600,000 users in December 2012
• More of the population is using Facebook in the UK than in the US 
• 1 million websites have integrated with Facebook  
• There are 33 million #Facebook accounts in the UK alone! 
• 210,000 years of music has been played on Facebook 
• 80% of users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook
• 23% of users check their Facebook account 5 or more times a day!
• If  Facebook was a country it would be the third largest in the world!
• 69% of parents are friends with their kids on Facebook

Twitter

• Just over 17% of Twitter users are in the UK, so that would give us a total figure of 34 million live accounts in the UK 
• Still, the vast majority (81.1 & 74.1% respectively) of accounts have fewer than 50 followers, and follow fewer than 50 accounts themselves
• Engagement is key: "56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored
• In the last 6 years: "Since the dawn of Twitter there has been a total of 163 billion tweets
• The average Twitter user has tweeted 307 times 
• 56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored
• 53% of people on Twitter recommend products or services in their tweets

Linkedin

• The total number of LinkedIn users in the UK passed the 10 million mark during 2012, and is now approaching 11 million  
• Linkedin represents just under 18% of the UK population making it the number one professional social networking space for the UK 
• 79% of LinkedIn users are over 35, and it’s also the only main social media site where men outnumber women  
• Every second 2 new members join linkedin

Information Credits to: The Drum, @Invoker, @McKinsey, Huffington Post, 

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Myself and the Big Biscuits extended team have been working together on many projects over the last few years. We have been working with SME's on creating their own digital strategies to large corps on how they maximise their efforts and duplicate their brand online. I have also spent some time speaking in front of and training groups and individuals on how to build their profile online to meet business goals.

From experience we have been able to come up with a clear process that covers all aspects of the social spectrum and it can be manipulated to accommodate each clients needs. What we have found is that the framework works and we have had great success. Phew!

Big Biscuits are currently looking in to many joint ventures moving forward but we have also seen the need to help smaller companies and start ups to start thinking socially by pointing them in the right direction. For this we have a new service offering!

I am running a 1hr 121 virtual session to help people and business understand the social journey and get focused. Together we confirm a time and I send a short questionnaire about your business so I can go in to our call with a head start. You will be asked to fill in a bit about what your business does and what you are looking to work on and achieve from this session. During our 121 I will be able to advise you on how to progress online, what you are doing right and what could could need tweaking. I will hopefully be able to help answer most of your questions and also generate some ideas. This hour is for you to tap in to my knowledge base and you will walk way with a more strategic understanding of how to use social media.

The 121 session is only £75 (Per business/Individual)

If you would like to find out more then please email me directly at becky@bigbiscuits.co.uk

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The image of a child enthusiastically completing their Maths homework is far trickier to conjure up than that of a child checking their Facebook account or having a debate about the latest Big Brother eviction via Twitter. In the digital age it’s not uncommon for a child to be more technologically savvy than their parents and as the new generation grows up with a computer sitting resident in most households, should we not be adapting traditional learning to fit in with this new age, getting social to serve us educationally too?

The issue
Whilst the colour and vibrancy of social media with its real time interaction and rapid rate of growth can be easy for young people to engage with and become enthusiastic about, Maths and English are decidedly drier subjects for them to willingly commit study time too. There is however, still high demand for these in the corporate vicinity as employers; even of seemingly unrelated industries require at least a passing level and some degree of aptitude in these academic subjects.

So…is there a way to bridge the gap?
One of the most powerful attributes of social media is its ability to convey information through different formats, catering for multiple types of learning, allowing those who develop their knowledge best through reading, visual stimulation or interactive exercises to get the maximum benefit from it. Whilst education tends to keep in large part with more traditional learning formats, this means that homework and whiteboards are still more commonplace than interactive activities such as researching and writing a blog post that gets a higher read rate than peers or exercises based around calculating follower increases and Facebook virality. Although many schools are combining more and more varied learning formats into their lessons, it still seems like a missed opportunity not to take full advantage of the social opportunity out there, linking those vital educational requirements in with social media to facilitate and maximise learning.

Businesses use it; why not educational establishments?
With seemingly endless enthusiasm for Facebook and Twitter and YouTube videos being watched at unprecedented levels it seems that harnessing this energy for educational purposes is a logical step to take. Whilst videos are being used more and more in the classroom, education doesn’t seem to have taken to social as much as business has yet. Advertisers and brands everywhere are harnessing the power of social media and as some private schools and academic tutors begin to adapt and vary their teaching techniques according to their students strengths, if the strict rules and red tape of education can begin to follow suit, perhaps we can start to see a degree of transference in the unending enthusiasm that young people appear to have for social media into formal education.

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I am sure we are speaking for many when we say how great the London Olympics have been so far and we still have our Paralympians yet to WOW us further. There was real scepticism in the build up to the event wondering if it was really worth all the money, the hype and if it was possible to come anywhere close to the spectacle of Beijing four years ago. It has been quite an incredible couple of weeks watching as the nation got behind the games. 

The spectators in the stands supported every athletic and left a lasting impression with the rest of the world with of warm sportsmanship. These games have been full of pride and have overshadowed any real negativity that has mostly been directed at the empty seats and illegal doping. 

The experts and media have dubbed these games ‘The Social Games’ due to is overwhelming participation online from fans and personal insights from the Athletes. Not only have we been glued to our TV screens but we have been commentating and engaging online making this the most interactive games yet.

Here we have collated some of the stats and statistics so far… and yes, they are impressive!

 
*More than 28.4 million tweets about the London Olympics were posted in the first 10 days of competition
*12 million people watched on mobile devices, accounting for 33% of all usage
*48 "official” Twitter accounts were made, ranging from live feeds, mascot accounts, and even cameras with personality, appealing to every interest
*There was over 100million likes across Facebook collectively for the Olympic Athletes and teams. 
* Twitter has claimed over 150million tweets about the games over 16 days
* The biggest moment as measured by tweets per minute was Usain Bolt (@UsainBolt) of Jamaica winning gold in the 200m sprint: 80,000+ TPM
*US basketball player Kobe Bryant won the most talked about race with 7,402,600 posts
*Over 10 athletes acquired more than 1 millions new followers each including @TomDaley1994
*People from 120 countries checked in to an Olympic event
*There was 752.000 Google+ followers
*Mr Bean was the most tweeted topic during the Opening Ceremony
*The opening ceremony was one of the most tweeted events in history. 6.3 million tweets were sent by 2.6 million users
*When asked to describe how they felt about the Opening Ceremony in one word, the overwhelming majority said they were ‘proud’, ‘amazed’ and ‘impressed’ with the event above all else.

London set out to leave a legacy and that it did. Needless to say we could not be prouder to be British! 

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A key part of any strategy is understanding your current landscape and your competitors activity. It's an ideal opportunity to look at what is working well and what you feel could be improved to consider when executing your own digital strategy.

When looking at an online social media strategy this exercise is incredibly helpful and insightful and can help you to make a great head start. It will also inspire your creativity and maximise your opportunities using the online space.

Have they been consistent with their brand personality on all channels?

Does their activity reflect well on their brand?

Where are they most active with the highest level of engagement?

Have they encouraged visitors to continue to connect with them by adding social buttons?

Do they have a blog to highlight internal talent and solidify credibility?

Have they included social sharing?

How could they improve the content?

Do they integrate online with offline?

Are they consistent?

Are they engaging in real time and responding to prospects in the right manner?

And the most important one of all - What could they do better and what other opportunities are there?

When sitting down to start your discovery remember you need to look at this excercise from a prospect, client, influencer, board member or fans prospective. You are trying to look from the outside in opposed to your already professional, knowledgeable and cynical eye. How would your target audience respond to what they are seeing and hearing? It's also advisable that you get more than one perspective. Try and ask a few people within and some outside your organisation to give you some feedback for a well rounded view.

Here are some helpful questions that you can ask when visiting their social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube as well as their website and company blog.

From these insights you can start to map out your social strategy with awareness of your competitors and fresh ideas to give you the competitive edge.

 

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 Instagram is the tool you can use to take, enhance and share pictures with others. It is used to share a visual journey of yours or your business’s daily life. What sets it apart from Flickr is the ability to easily edit and enhance your photos so they look more impressive and of better quality. 

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