How the digital and social media stats 2018 can inform your digital marketing strategy
If you’re in business then you’ll know that social media is a powerful tool for building awareness of your brand and getting the message about your products and services out there. We think one of the best ways to find out more about this powerful tool and assess your digital and social media strategies is by looking at digital and social media stats 2018.
To get the best results from your digital and social media strategies, there are a number of key factors to consider. Factors such as:
The 2018 Q3 Global Digital Statshot report from social media management platform Hootsuite and We Are Social, a global conversation social media marketing and communications services agency, was recently release. You can see all the charts in the report in this SlideShare, but read below for the essential digital and social media stats 2018 from the report. They will help to inform and guide your choice of channel, content and tone of voice to ensure your digital and social media marketing activities build a successful online presence for your brand.
300 million more Internet users
To further underline what we’ve been saying for ages about how no business in today’s world can afford to be without an online presence is the fact that about 300 million more people started using the Internet in the 12 months to July 2018.
More than half the world is on the Internet
With more than 4.1 billion people online – that’s 54% of the world’s population – the Internet is the place to be. As suspected, there was also impressive growth of 11% in the number of people using social media. The additional 328 million new users of social media in the year to July 2018, means that there are now more than 3.3 billion people active on social media.
Mobile is where it’s at
According to the latest data, 52.5 percent of all Internet traffic happens on mobile phones. Even more impressive a figure is the fact that 92% of these the 3.3 billion people who are active on social media do so via their mobile devices. Furthermore, only 12% of Internet users who use Google are likely to access the internet via a PC or a tablet, whereas 57% will use their mobile phone. Clearly then, if your business website is not optimised for mobile users then you’re definitely missing out.
The Internet is getting faster
Internet access speeds increased over those reported in the previous quarter, with the average fixed connection now 8% faster than it was just three months previously. Average mobile connection speeds also increased in the same period, getting 6% or more than 1 MBPS (megabit per second) faster.
To access the world’s fastest Internet connection speeds here’s where you need to be…
World website rankings
Online shopping giants like Amazon and Taobao continue to move up the charts, which reflects the definite upward trend in online shopping, as you’ll see in the next section about Online shopping trends.
And YouTube is now the world’s second-largest search engine, behind Google and even well-ahead of Facebook. Does your digital marketing strategy include YouTube as a prime channel? People love video and it’s a great medium for promoting products and services.
Online shopping trends
The number of Internet users visiting online retailers each month has increased slightly to 92% (up from 91%). However, more than 75% of these shoppers converted at least one of their visits into a purchase. That’s a lot of online sales!
There’s also been significant growth in the use of shopping apps, with 65% of women (up from 61% previously) and 62% of men (up from 59% previously) on the Internet using a shopping app each month.
The world’s most searched topic
It’s probably not surprising that the recent FIFA World Cup event would become the most searched topic in the Global Digital Statshot report for the third quarter of 2018. Global Internet search volumes for the topic increased a massive 2,000%.
And the FIFA World Cup trend continued in the realm of social media too, with star players seeing huge jumps in the number of people following them – with the likes of Leo Messi and Neymar Jr, respectively, adding 7.7 million and 10 million more followers to their Instagram accounts.
There was also impressive growth in the number of people and the amount of time they spent watching live-streaming of the various matches on their mobile devices.
Growth in using voice search
There’s a growing trend in the number of people speaking ‘to’ their mobile devices, with a global average of more than 37% of Internet users using voice search and voice commands. However, the trends vary from country to country, as personal levels of comfort and/or the level of acceptance culturally with using voice commands in public spaces do and will determine the extent of voice interface use.
Younger people are more likely to use voice, with 45 percent of the world’s internet users aged between 16 and 24 saying that they used voice interfaces last month, compared to just 17 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds.
The growth in the use of voice search will continue to grow as all the big Internet companies, such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Tencent, and Baidu, are making voice part-and-parcel of their latest services, apps and devices.
Social media advertising audience reach
Although Facebook is still the leading platform in the world of social media, gaining an additional 67 million users to take its tally to 2.2 billion active users, YouTube is starting to nip at its heel, with more than 1.9 billion active users.
And while Instagram recently described itself as “a community of more than 1 billion” that number indicates active accounts instead of active users, which is a number of 844 million people.
Also, the average age of Facebook users is increasing, with a 1% drop from 35% to 34% in the number of below the age of 25.
In addition to the recent closing of 70 million fake accounts there have been other significant changes in the advertising audience that can be reached via Twitter. Notably the fact that male users now account for 64% of Twitter’s advertising audience, up from just 57% in the last quarter, and that the average age of a third of Twitter’s advertising audience is now below 25-years-old.
| Facebook versus Instagram – some quick stats | |
|---|---|
| Facebook ad audience | Instagram ad audience |
| • 2.026 billion people can be reached via ads on Facebook | • 844 million people can be reached via ads on Instagram |
| • 24% of Facebook pages use paid media | • Of the potential Instagram ad audience: |
| • Of the potential Facebook ad audience: | |
| – 57% is male; 43% is female | – 49.7% is male; 50.3% is female |
| – 35% (or 709 million users) is under 25 years of age | – 39% (or 329 million users) is under 25 years of age |
| – 13% (or 263 million users) is over 50 years of age | – 9% (76 million users) is over 50 years of age |
| So, more men are on Facebook, while more women are on Instagram. And Instagram has a slightly higher percentage of its ad audience under the age of 25. | |
Although LinkedIn doesn’t report the number of monthly active users, the platform does have more than 560 million registered users and attracts almost 300 million unique visitors each month.
Of interest are the facts that more than 70% of LinkedIn users are outside the USA and that it’s still the only large Western social platform that isn’t blocked in China, where it has 41 million users.
Dramatic drop in Facebook ad clicks
One of the most significant stats contained in this quarter’s report is the fact that clicks on Facebook ads have dropped by a massive 20%. However, this result merely indicates the behaviour of Facebook users, i.e. clicking fewer ads, rather than an indication that Facebook advertising is performing less well. Remember, Facebook ads can accomplish various objectives, including raising brand awareness or reach, without require users to click the ad.
There have also been drops in other types of Facebook engagement, with users ‘liking’ a median of 10 posts in the last 30 days, as opposed to ‘liking’ 11 posts three months ago. Also, comments on Facebook posts is down, from five comments per month in April to four comments per month in July. Overall, average engagement with Facebook posts is down 4% over the previous quarter.
Why has Facebook engagement fallen so much? Who can say for sure. Maybe all the often-less-than-positive recent media coverage of Facebook’s privacy issues have played a role. Then again it could simply be a case of advertisers changing the way they use Facebook ads from requiring ‘click’ engagement to merely driving awareness instead. Or it could be the result of Facebook’s own changes to the way it focuses its Newsfeed.
More likely the drop in the level of Facebook ad clicks and engagement is as result of a combination of these and other factors. However, the point to be taken from these results though is to make sure that you don’t focus your digital marketing efforts on only one digital or social media channel. Far better to spread your content across a variety of channels.
Smartphones dominate in mobile
With more than 5.3 billion smartphones in use globally, smartphones now account for 60% of all mobile connections – and the consumption of data continues to grow accordigly, with the average smartphone now using 3.4GB of mobile data each month.
More than 28 billion mobile apps were downloaded in the second quarter of 2018, at a cost of $18.5 billion USD, which equates to an average revenue per handset of $3.48 USD.
Not surprisingly, as the leading social media platform, Facebook still tops the ranking of new mobile apps downloads. For example, in June, Facebook apps accounted for four out of the five most downloaded apps.
In the mobile-apps-by-revenue rankings, download of games apps dominate – with Japanese and Australian users leading in the per-capita spend stakes.
When it comes to smartphone operating systems, Android and iOS still account for the lion’s share of the global mobile market, at around 96%, but with Android the leading operating system, responsible for 77% of all web page requests coming from mobile devices.
Wrapping up our digital and social media stats 2018 update
The key learning from these digital and social media stats 2018 is that social media remains as important as ever when it comes to your digital marketing efforts. And while the channels you use and the content you put on them will vary depending on your sector of the market and your target audience, overall having engaging content, responding quickly and being willing to invest in advertising will help you achieve the online presence your desire.
Want to know more?
Would you like to have an informed discussion about the digital and social media stats 2018 covered in this article? Or find out how to use these learnings to develop a digital marketing and social media strategy that will create the best possible online presence for your business? Simply give the team at leading Auckland Digital Marketing Agency Net Branding a call. We’ve been helping businesses large and small across New Zealand make the most of their online presence to drive leads and increase sales. We’re just a click or phone call away, so get in touch today.
