Social media is central to many of our campaigns at Peak. We consume news about the impact these channels have and apply our learnings to client projects.

If you’re still struggling to get buy-in on social media, this list of 30 facts provides useful need-to-knows on why engagement is important.

Did You Know?

1. Over 75 percent of all internet users use social media (source: Makeuseof)
2. 71 per cent of women use social media compared to 62 percent of men (source: SearchEngineJournal)
3. 91 percent of brand mentions on social media come from people with fewer than 500 followers and 94 percent of those mentions are positive (source: Business2Community)
4. 21 percent of consumers will unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content (source: Social Times)
5. 89 percent of 18-29 year age group use social media (source: smallbusinesscan) and 84 percent of C-level/VP execs use social media to support purchase decisions (source: smallbusinesscan)

Facebook:

6. Facebook accounts for 21 percent of all social media referral traffic globally (source: TechCrunch)
7. Facebook drives 23 percent of all traffic across the internet! (source: Shareaholic)
8. 189 million of Facebook’s users are ‘smartphone only’ (source: wersm)
9. 23 percent of users check their accounts at least five times a day (source: SearchEngineJournal)

Pinterest:

10. 80% of pins are actually re-pins (source: Mashable)
11. Shoppers referred to a site from Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to buy (source: Socialmediatoday)
12. Pinterest referrals spend 70 percent more money than visitors referred from non-social channels (source: Socialmediatoday)
13. Pins with a call to action increase engagement by 80 percent (source: Socialmediatoday)
14. 80 percent of Pinterest users are women; 50% of all users have children (source: Socialmediatoday)

Twitter:

15. The fastest growing group of new users on Twitter are aged between 55 and 64 years (source: wersm)
16. 65 percent of users expect a response on Twitter in less than two hours (source: SearchEngineJournal)
17. 88 percent of Twitter users are on mobile and 500 million tweets are posted each day (source: Jeff Bullas)

LinkedIn:

18. LinkedIn has nearly a quarter of a billion users (source: smallbusinesscan)
19. Only 20 percent of LinkedIn users are under the age of 30 (source: SearchEngineJournal)
20. 40 percent of B2B buyers say LinkedIn is important when researching technology and services to purchase and 65 percent of B2B companies have acquired a customer through this channel (source: business2community)

Instagram:

21. More than 70 million photos and videos are sent daily (source: Hootsuite)
22. 53 percent of internet users aged 18-29 use Instagram (source: Jeff Bullas)
23. Instagram is considered the most important social network by 32 percent of American teens (source: Hootsuite)
24. Among top brands Instagram has been adopted by 85 percent (source: Hootsuite)
25. Brands on Instagram are seeing a per follower engagement rate of 4.21 percent – that’s statistically 58 times higher than Facebook and 120 times higher than Twitter (source: Hootsuite)
26. Still photos are more popular on Instagram than videos – generating 36 percent more likes (source: Hootsuite)
27. Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6 percent more engagement and posts tagged with a location receive 79 percent higher engagement (source: Hootsuite)

Google+:

28. 18 percent of marketers plan to increase efforts on Google+ this year (source: SearchEngineJournal)
29. The +1 button is hit 5 billion times per day (source: Jeff Bullas)
30. Google+ has more than 2.5 billion users but only 10 percent are active (source: smallbusinesscan)

Tags: facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, social media, Twitter

Despite social media’s widespread use for internal and external corporate communications, I still encounter a fair number of business owners and C-level executives who fail to understand its value. The fact is, digital technologies offer significant opportunities for B2B dialogue and profile building.

When properly leveraged, social platforms can be used to establish a company as an authority in its field by allowing key spokespeople to demonstrate industry expertise. Participating in online business communities can help achieve this. For a textile manufacturer we work with, we regularly monitor and identify discussion threads with wholesalers on relevant LinkedIn groups. Whether you begin a conversation or join one within a LinkedIn group, over time this will establish you as a thought leader.

“Knowledge market” websites such as LinkedIn Answers and Quora offer another channel through which an organization’s expertise can be showcased. These popular Q&A sites provide a platform for site users to ask questions on topics related to a specific industry, and an opportunity for experts to answer them. As there are a large number of B2B conversations occurring on these sites, we monitor them on behalf of our clients and alert them when there are questions relevant to their industry that require response. This results in increased credibility amongst their stakeholders, as well as prospective clients.

Participating in Twitter chats and live tweeting from industry conventions are other techniques that allow a company spokesperson to share their insights with their peers. When one of our clients, an international concrete company, was set to attend the industry’s go-to annual conference, we worked to secure an opportunity for the company’s CEO to tweet on behalf of the conference organizers. This positioned the CEO as a thought leader and, combined with live tweeting, showed anyone following the conference hashtag (whether or not they attended) that she was among the most prominent CEOs at the event.

Effective B2B social engagement takes time, dedication, consistent interaction and sharing of industry intelligence. It is strategic and aligns itself with a company’s overall communications, marketing and advertising calendars. Brands that do so will discover a new ROI – the type that defines social networking. We think of it as a return on influence.

Tags: B2B, LinkedIn, online business, social engagement, social media