When it comes to social media marketing, I constantly hear clients say, “I just don’t get it. Who has time?”
Now, I admit that I came to social media with the same attitude, and for a long time, I ignored social media too because, like my clients, my days were crazy full with other details that didn’t include telling everyone about the minutia of my day. My days aren’t any less busy, but I have spent some time with twitter and facebook and other social media sites so that I could figure out what it was all about. I was converted in less than a week. Turns out that twitter and facebook provide a lot more info than I first expected.
Think of it this way. Social media is like word-of-mouth on speed. The viral element makes information spread at rapid-fire pace and has the potential to quickly deliver a message.
In a recent Fast Company article by Lon Safko, this bit of information provided a more tangible account of the potential of Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook has more than 150 million members with more than 80 billion page views each month. Facebook is represented in 170 countries & territories, every continent, even Antarctica, and is available in 35 different languages. More than 1 in 5 people who access the Internet visit Facebook. If Facebook were it’s own country, it would be the eighth most populated country in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, & Nigeria.
… MySpace, on the other hand, has more than 76 million users in the U.S. and 120 million people worldwide with an average age of 26 years old. 88.1% of its members are between 18 and 55 years old and the 35 to 54 year old demographic is at 32%.
…And finally, LinkedIn is used as a professional directory and has more than 27 million users with an average household income over $110,000. The gender distribution weighs heavily toward males at 65% and 35% Female with an average age of 41 years old.
There’s no ignoring these numbers.
