Dive Brief:
Research from eMarketer found that 68.2% of global internet users, or 2.34 billion people worldwide, will regularly access a social media network this year.That figure represents 32% of the global population, up 9.2% from just last year, indicating that social media usage worldwide is growing very quickly.eMarketer predicts that increased access to the internet, particularly via mobile phones, will drive even more growth in the coming years.
Dive Insight:
Social media is taking over the world. While social media penetration has essential hits its saturation point in North America and Western Europe, significant growth is expected in other regions, such as Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, where first-time smartphone users are accessing the internet. Mobile access of social media platforms is projected to pass 80% this year and reach almost 86% by 2020.
What might even be more telling is that eMarketer does not include messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger and WeChat, in its definition of social network, although for marketing purposes, these apps tend to fall under social media. Given the popularity of messaging apps, especially in places like China, India, Brazil and Mexico, a social network definition that includes those apps would likely boost eMarketer’s findings. Given that, marketers should consider the study’s results as a hard floor on the size of social media's global audience.
The research offers marketers two key takeaways: Social media is a major marketing channel to reach audiences around the world; and any marketer who still doubts it’s a mobile-first marketing environment should be disabused of that notion, given the overwhelming adoption of mobile worldwide offering people in developing countries internet access for the first time.
Source & Credit:http://www.marketingdive.com/news/emarketer-32-of-world-will-regularly-use-social-media-in-2016/421940/
Contributed By:Jainender Nigam,prasarbharati.newsdesk1@gmail.com