THE REACH AND IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

September 23 , 2020 /

THE REACH AND IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Here is a brief summary of some of the top influencers in the world of social media.

The first social media site to reach a million monthly active users was MySpace – it achieved this milestone around 2004, about the same time as Facebook started.  This is arguably the beginning of social media as we know it.

In 2020, the global number of Facebook users is expected to reach 1.69 billion, up from 1.34 million in 2014.  How many of those accounts are fake are unknown.  Estimates vary greatly from a few million to many millions.  The point is that this is unknown, repeated for emphasis.

LinkedIn, starting in 2002, has over 660 million users in more than 200 countries and territories across the globe. 57 percent of LinkedIn users are male and 43 percent are female

Twitter was founded March 21, 2006, and it took two years to reach a million users.

Twitter boasted 330 million monthly active users (as of 2019 Q1). Of these, more than 40 percent, or more specifically, 145 million, use the service on a daily basis.

This was the first quarterly growth in monthly active users for Twitter in a year, which had been falling since its peak in the first quarter of 2018.

The platform has come under fire in recent years, especially given the harassment cases and its purported role in U.S. politics. But Twitter has acted in response, with its cleansing of up to 70 million fake accounts last year.  Wonder how many this year?

Instagram, which began in October of 2010, will reach 112.5 million U.S. users in 2020.

That’s a 5.4% increase over 2019, as estimated by eMarketer, which also predicts the network will reach 117.2 million U.S. users in 2021.

 TikTok which began just 4 years ago in 2016 claims 800 million users world-wide.

I did not include Snapchat, Pinterest and Reddit.  Here’s a link that includes data on the top seven social media sites: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media/biggest-social-media-sites/#close

Social media influences the way we think about every aspect of our lives, in politics, business, world culture, entertainment, education, careers, innovation, and more.  Here are two resources worth your consideration.

https://www.simplilearn.com/real-impact-social-media-article

https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_social_media_can_make_history/transcript?referrer=playlist-the_power_of_social_media

The questions I have for you are these:

  1. How do you use social media and what are your intentions?
  2. Are you getting the results you want if that is a goal?
  3. Do you use social media for a primary news source? Why?
  4. What has surprised you, if anything, about the use of social media?
  5. Are you part of a regular community on any of the larger platforms?
  6. What do you see ahead in terms of use and abuse of social media?

If you’re willing to share your responses, please copy the questions along with your responses and email them to me at grg@garygruber.com   Thanks.  I will share the results with you and if I publish them, no names will be used to protect the identity of the respondents.

 

Comments (2)

  1. As I read this post, I thought about how I use social media versus my Gen Z kids. Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, you should watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix. Insightful and makes me think about my use as well as those around me.

  2. Yes, “The Social Dilemma” is a good look at the bigger picture and it’s not all that pretty. We have “David Attenborough: A Life on the Planet” on our list for this week. Eager to hear kids’ response to that and our failure to take care of Mother Earth. We’re facing some critical dilemmas I have not seen in my lifetime, BTW, Attenborough is 94!

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