When I was working on the new edition of How to Make Money with Social Media, I pulled together a list of facts about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and a whole slew of other social media platforms.
I thought you might find the data and information helpful, perhaps in a blog post, SlideShare deck or speech of your own. With that in mind, what follows are 50 interesting facts about social media that might surprise you.
- In the three minutes it takes you to read this blog post, 300 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube. (Source: Mashable)
- 44 percent of users on Twitter have never sent a tweet. (Source: Social Times)
- Facebook owns a massive number of anti-Facebook domains, including IHateTheFacebookLikeButton.com. (Source: Mashable)
- 74% of online adults use social networking sites. (Source: Pew)
- If Wikipedia were a book it would be more than two billion pages. (Source: IACP)
- LinkedIn has a lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and Facebook. (Source: Huffington Post)
- People are spending 1 out of every 7 minutes on Facebook when online. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- 80% of all Pinterest pins are actually repins. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- The average user of a social networking site has more close ties and is half as likely to be socially isolated as the average American. (Source: Pew)
- It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users; Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year. (Source: IACP)
- 74% of consumers rely on social media to influence their purchasing decisions. (Source: CeBIT)
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. (Source: Socialnomics)
- Facebook users typically are spending 10.5 billion minutes (almost 20,000 years) on the social network. And, that’s excluding mobile devices. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- Every minute, Tumblr owners publish approximately 27,778 new blog posts. (Source: IACP)
- Mothers with children under the age of 5 are the most active on social media (Source: Experian)
- 1 in 5 new couples met online. (Source: Socialnomics)
- There are 1 billion “likes” daily on Instagram. (Source: Instagram)
- 71% of consumers that receive a quick brand response on social media are likely to recommend that brand to others. (Source: CeBIT)
- Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- In the first 24 hours after launching its video-sharing capabilities, Instagram users uploaded 5 million videos. (Source: IACP)
- The majority of people in one survey said they don’t believe Facebook ads are trustworthy. (Source: CeBIT)
- 189 million Facebook’s users are ‘mobile only.’ (Source: IACP)
- Every second, 2 new members join LinkedIn. (Source: Huffington Post)
- YouTube has more than a billion unique users per month which equates to nearly half of all internet users. (Source: IACP)
- 53% of millennials would rather lose their sense of smell than their technology. (Source: Socialnomics)
- Facebook users watch more than 500 years’ worth of YouTube video every day. (Source: IACP)
- 97% of all consumers search for local businesses online. (Source: CeBIT)
- There are over 10 million Facebook apps. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- Food is the top category on Pinterest, making up 57% of discussions. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- 500 new Facebook accounts are added every minute. (Source: IACP)
- LinkedIn has over 3 million company pages with over 1 billion endorsements. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- Emails with social sharing buttons increase click-through rates by 158%. (Source: CeBIT)
- 50,000 links are shared every minute on Facebook. (Source: IACP)
- The “like” button is clicked 3,125,000 times every minute on Facebook. (Source: IACP)
- 1 in 5 divorces involve social media. (Source: Socialnomics)
- Twitter handles more search queries per month than Bing and Yahoo combined. (Source: IACP)
- There are 684,478 pieces of content shared on Facebook, 3,600 new photos on Instagram; and 2,083 check-ins on Foursquare during every minute of every day. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- As of June 2014, Facebook drove 23.39% of internet traffic. (Source: IACP)
- 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations; only 14% trust advertisements. (Source: Socialnomics)
- Social media accounts for more than one in every four minute. (Source: IACP)
- People are spending 1 out of every 7 minutes on Facebook when online. Facebook users typically are spending 10.5 billion minutes (almost 20,000 years) on the social network. And, that’s excluding mobile devices. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- Each minute, 243,055.5 photos are uploaded to Facebook. (Source: IACP)
- YouTube has over 1 billion unique visitors per month. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- Each minute, 150,000 messages are sent on Facebook. (Source: IACP)
- 43% of online adults over the age of 65 use social networking sites. (Source: IACP)
- “Selfie” is now a word in Webster. (Source: Socialnomics)
- Users send out 58 million tweets per day, with 9,100 happening every second. However, there are 222 million Twitters who just watch other people’s tweets. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
- 93% of shopper’s buying decisions are influenced by social media. (Source: Socialnomics)
- 93% of marketers use social media for business; only 9% of marketing companies have full time bloggers. (Source: Huffington Post)
I hope you find these facts and figures helpful. Feel free to use the data in your blogs, SlideShare decks and speeches. And let us know about any other interesting social media facts you hear about!
About the Author: Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications agency that works with national and international brands. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.