Social Media Phenomenon

Social media is a much misunderstood business phenomenon. There are those who just see no relevance in the voyeuristic time-vacuums of on-line social engagement. Then there are others who are creating professions prophesying the relevance of being digitally socially engaged.

There are many social media mediums; from QQ and Renren in China to Facebook, Linked-in or Twitter in North America. Many opportunities or many distractions, depending on your perspective.

With an election underway and another pending, social media will become an increasingly critical tool for those trying to influence the masses. Like it or not, expect to be socially spammed and lobbied electronically.

This past week I received an e-mail from Reid Hoffman, perhaps many others also received a similar message. Reid Hoffman is the founder and Chairman of Linked-in, in my estimation the premier business social media application.

Mr. Hoffman was announcing that Linked-in had just surpassed 100 million subscribers. (I was number 35,351 about a decade ago). Currently 41 per cent of members on linked-in are female and 59 per cent are male. Twenty-one per cent are between 18-24 yrs of age, 36 per cent are between 25-34 yrs, 36 per cent are between 35-54 yrs with only 7 percent 55 yrs or older. Full 72 per cent between 25-54; a very mature and marketable group.

For anyone who has recently watched the movie The Social Network, it is hard to imagine that in only seven years the power of this application has managed to topple governments in the Middle East.

Today there are more than 500 million active users engaged with Facebook. Fifty per cent of active users log on to face book in any given day. The average user has 130 friends; collectively people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

Entrepreneurs and developers from more than 190 countries build on the Facebook platform. There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. In 2011 social network spending is estimated to reach $6 billion, according to e-marketer.

Facebook had topped Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for user engagement in 2010. Ninety-six per cent of the world’s population under 30 years of age has joined a social network. One-in-Eight couples married in the US met via a social network. Like it or not, this phenomenon does have some momentum!

These stats are revealing as to who is using Facebook: Barack Obama has 18,913,409 Facebook fans, Lady Gaga has 31,277,377. Stephen Harper has 44,195 people who like his page, Michael Ignatieff has 42,630; SpongeBob Square Pants has 19,158,703. (Too bad SpongeBob was not on the ballot).

Twitter is five-years old. There are 1 billion tweets posted per week, as recently as March 11th, 2011 there was 177 million tweets posted on that single day.

The Internet does provide great opportunities for those of us isolated in geographically rural areas like Prince Edward Island. Perhaps too does social media. To quote Eric Qualman, “We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media; the question is how well we DO it.”