A study done by Global Web Index has revealed some pretty interesting statistics about global platform usage of Social Media in 2012. There are a few obvious trends and some perhaps surprising facts too based on their research. A link to the report is at the foot of this article.
Facebook out front but Google+ at number 2
Based on monthly active users and despite being branded a failure, Google+ has a very large use base. Closely followed by YouTube Google appears to be on the right track although there are a few claims that these numbers are inflated as you are given these accounts when you activate Gmail for example. I still don’t utilize G+ enough. My own experience has been that it’s like an extended Twitter. I tend to use it for peer-to-peer information and not necessarily for “fun”. To me the fun is on Facebook and Twitter to an extent.
G+ has such a rich set of additional features such as communities and hang-outs and had a number of active groups from the start. I’ve a few developer friends who swear by it. Surely it is worth investigating more for peer to peer usage and internal usage within the enterprise. I’ll talk about this in the coming weeks.
Local social platforms in marked decline
The report also highlights the decline of local Social Media platforms, such as Hyves. This to me was fairly obvious though perhaps quite bold. Many people will connect with the global platforms because their friends or peers have accounts there – so they may well have a local SM account but used for different purposes.
The fact that VPN and firewall by-passing technologies are easier to get hold of and use is also key -making it easier for the user to actually get past the restrictions. Couple this with the fact that local platforms have a limited reach or capacity (albeit they might be huge). Many of these may be saturated already.
Predictions for 2013
Hopefully people will really start separating between platforms. I’m very guilty on a personal level for cross-posting between Twitter & Facebook for example, but recruitment companies do scan public postings as well of course as LinkedIn to assess potential candidates.
Mobile will continue to explode! Already this month it was announced that mobile access to Facebook is greater than desktop.