Social Media: Here To Stay Or Just A Passing Trend?
You can’t switch on the TV, listen to the radio and certainly not surf the internet without getting flooded by the social media hype. Is this the future or just a bubble that is bound to burst sometime soon?
Sceptics may argue that the social media bubble will go the same route as the dot.com bubble of 1998-2001, but as many social media sites have been in existence since at least 2003, it would appear that they are here to stay. And flourish?
For numerophobes, some less empirical information that may be easier to handle:-
- Online social media activity outstrips porn activity
- Assuming this was Year Zero how long would it take various media to reach 50mn users? Radio would take 38 years, television 13 years, cable 10 years and the internet 5 years
- If Facebook was a country it would be the 8th largest, ahead of Russia, Japan and Nigeria
Everyone loves stats and rankings, they somehow give credence to something as intangible as social media. If you aren’t using social media then the whole concept is even more ethereal.
The Statistics: All You Need To Prove the Case?
Facebook
- More than 250mn active users
- More than 120mn users log on to Facebook at least once each day
- More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
- The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
LinkedIn
- More than 43mn members in over 200 countries
- A new member joins approximately every second
- 50% outside the United States
- Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members
Twitter
- User stats unknown up to 19mn visitors in Mach 2009
- 1382% growth February 2008 – February 2009
The Counterargument: Pareto’s Law
All of the above is fine and dandy. However, from the sceptics corner comes a counter blow.
Take Twitter for example, loads of daily tweets, huge amount of twittering going on, thousands of accounts opened hourly but are we all twittering away? Some may argue that accounts are opened because we are all jumping on the media frenzy and that only 5% or a similarly low percentage are regular twitterers.
Very true, I think that Pareto’s Law or the 80/20 principle is very applicable, a greater minority is responsible for a smaller majority or however you want to transpose it. A smaller group of individuals are responsible for the majority of activity. But is that not life as a whole: the poverty/wealth disparity, equality/inequality imbalance and the revenue streams of the majority of companies? All these are here to stay and so is social media.
Social Media: What Should You Do?
Wherever you stand, whether pro or anti social media, the reality is that it is here to stay and very probably continue to grow exponentially. The world is getting smaller daily, our communications methods and technology make everything instant and social media fits into this environment perfectly. Arguably it is social media that is the driver and we are here for the ride.
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