We use social media in our daily activities. Whether we are sending a text message to a friend, answering a Facebook message, asking about a recipe on a food forum, or looking for a job on Linkedin. We are always using social media. But why is social media so important? Why is it so popular? Who cares that we are on different digital platforms and constantly uploading our own content and reading content of other users?
The following figures will give you an insight on why social media has become so important for companies and individuals:
Facebook boasts over 171 million unique visitors compared to Google, the most popular Web search engine, which exceeds 174 million unique visitors. YouTube, a video sharing website, is the second largest search engine with 153 million unique visitors and where over two billion videos are downloaded each day. There are over 156 million blogs in existence. Tumblr is the 8th largest site in the U.S. Social Networks and Blogs category. Nearly 40 % of social media users access social media content from their mobile phones. Americans spend more time on Facebook than on any other website.
These figures are astounding. Social media has a powerful influence on consumer behavior and on purchase decisions. In fact, 60 percent of people who use three or more digital means of research for product purchases learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. Furthermore, 70 percent of social networkers shop online.
The audience now decides and expresses freely the value of a company’s products and services. Companies worldwide want to know how to better tap into this huge market. These companies are aware that to stay competitive they have to not only become “social” but understand how to harness the power that social media marketing can have.
