The number of social media users. Social networks under the microscope, or in search of the target audience. Russian officials must provide personal information about social media accounts

Mail.Ru Group researched and compared the audiences of the most popular social networks in Russia - Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir, VKontakte, Facebook and Twitter.

The study touches upon the main demographic indicators, geography, identifies the similarities and differences in the behavior of users of social networks. To obtain the most objective results, TNS, comScore and Brand Analytics data were used.

The most significant monthly audience is In contact with and Classmateswho visit more 52 and 42 million... users respectively. About 30 million... people come every month to My world, slightly less - in Facebook... Russian audience Twitter an order of magnitude less - 11.6 million.

The highest percentage of women is among Odnoklassniki users (56%) , and the highest percentage of men among Twitter users ( 47%).

The average user of Odnoklassniki spends on a social network twice the time the average user on VKontakte (20 minutes versus 10). Hence the almost double advantage in the number of page views per month.

Users often have accounts on different social networks. Monthly audience Of my world most often overlaps with VKontakte (87%) and Classmates (80%). 68% users In contact with also visit Classmates.

Almost half of the audience Odnoklassniki (43%) lives in small towns with a population of up to 100 thousand people. The opposite situation has FacebookandTwitter, 34% and 35% whose users live in large settlements (more than 800 thousand people).

What are social media users writing about?

• About myself: 15-20% of the flow are messages about what they are doing, where they are, what they eat, think, and feel.
• Share news from the media and discuss them:40% posts are reposts to news, events, comments, discussions. During high-profile events, the number of discussions increases dramatically.
• They create the news themselves.This type of information is gaining momentum thanks to the development of mobile Internet access, cameras and video recorders.
• They are discussing goods, services, events.
• Post entertainment content:memes, cats, beautiful pictures, etc.

Less: discuss hobbies, publish creative work, advertise something, etc.

Today social networks are so firmly rooted in our life that the composition of the five most popular social platforms practically does not change from year to year. However, the extent of penetration and use of these social networks differs depending on geography and demographic factors. Understanding these differences plays a big role when targeting a specific audience. When comparing the most popular social networks, it is important to pay attention not to the number of registered accounts, but to the number of active users. From the review, you will find out which social networks are growing faster than others, and which are now in decline.

Most popular social platforms

The chart, produced by analytical agency Statista, gives a clear idea of \u200b\u200bthe number of active users (in millions) on the most popular social networks in the world. Tops the Facebook list. This can hardly surprise anyone. Facebook has a large market share with over 2 billion active users. In January 2017, the giant's closest competitor was WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook. Then he was in second place. Today, YouTube is on the second line with 1.5 billion active users. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp come in third and fourth, respectively.

They are followed by platforms, the majority of whose audience is located in the Asia-Pacific region. These are QQ, WeChat and Qzone (with over 600 million active users). This shows that there are a number of popular social media in the Asia-Pacific region. After them, we see a cluster of sites popular mainly in the West - Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter.

And what about Russia?

In Russia, the penetration of social networks is estimated at 47%; 67.8 million Russians have accounts in them. According to Statista, YouTube is the most active in Russia (63% of respondents), followed by VKontakte - 61%. The global leader Facebook is only on the fourth line with an indicator of 35%. Skype and WhatsApp dominate messengers (38% each).

Social networks that grow faster than others

Marketers usually don't spend a lot of time on SMM. Which social network should you focus your efforts on? Twitter, which managed to reach an audience of 313 million users from 2010 to 2017, showed the slowest growth rates compared to its largest competitors Facebook, WhatsApp and China's WeChat. Founded in 2013, Instagram surpassed Twitter in terms of audience size by 2014.

New research from Statista found Twitter lagged far behind its rivals in 2017. It showed the lowest monthly active audience growth, which from Q3 2015 to Q3 2017 was only 23 million. Facebook, meanwhile, grew by 461 million.

How users interact with brands on social media

Knowing how to behave and what publications to make in social media is also important, since this forms the image of your brand and, as a result, encourages users to buy your products or, on the contrary, unsubscribe from your groups. Social media is increasingly used as a platform for working with customers, where customers, existing and potential, want to get answers to their questions in real time. A chart from the Sprout Social report shows that 48% of users can be persuaded to buy by quickly answering questions in a group. 46% respond positively to promotions, and 42% can choose a brand product if its page contains educational content. 27% of the users surveyed admitted that they would want to make a purchase if they were shown materials that usually remain behind the scenes.

Half of Sprout Social survey participants said they would unsubscribe from the brand community if they post annoying content there, and 27% said they would flag the brand and its page as spam and block it. This is why publishing relevant and engaging content that resonates with your target audience is so important to reach and engage your potential customers.

Social networks with the most active audience

An important factor that influences how much time we should devote to SMM on a particular social network is the level of audience engagement. Here again Facebook dominates, and also has the highest engagement by time, according to data collected by analyst firm comScore from a survey of a group of US consumers.

Facebook's success is amazing. In addition to the social network itself occupying the top spot, other platforms owned by the corporation also occupied the second and third places. Facebook Messenger's penetration rate is 47%, with Instagram following right behind it.

From the fresh data from Pew Internet, shown in the diagram below, we can see that Facebook is also leading in terms of the number of active audience per day. 76% of users visit the social network every day, while on Instagram this figure is 51%. Only 42% of Twitter users check it daily, almost half of Facebook's.

The average daily duration of using social networks in the United States is 2 hours 1 minute, in Russia users spend a little more time on social media - 2 hours 19 minutes.

Engagement rates across different social media

Analytical marketing firm TrackMaven analyzed 51 million posts from various companies across 130 industries to find out which social media has the highest engagement rates. The results showed that Instagram is the absolute leader in terms of engagement per 1000 subscribers. This is so much higher than other social networks that I had to draw up a separate diagram to illustrate the difference between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

As you can see from the second graph, Facebook is significantly ahead of Twitter and LinkedIn. The reason for this is largely because more posts are being published on Twitter, because there is no algorithm here to show content to only a small portion of the audience. Because of this, brands have to bombard their feeds with posts to break through the information noise. This, in turn, lowers the response rate to publications. Below is the average daily number of posts per account in three social networks.

General statistics of social media usage around the world

Every year, WeAreSocial updates its comprehensive statistical report, the Global Digital Report, which brings together useful data on social media around the world. From it, you can find out how differently social platforms are used in different parts of the world. It is surprising that Western countries are seriously lagging behind in terms of social media penetration.

Below are the main findings of the research.

• The number of Internet users in 2018 reached 4.021 billion people, which is 7 percent more compared to the data a year ago.
• The audience of social networks in 2018 totals 3.196 billion people - 13% higher than last year's figure.
• The number of mobile phone users is 5.135 billion, which means 4% more than last year.

The numbers are growing rapidly, especially for active users of social networks from mobile devices - the penetration rate is 39%, which is 5% more than in 2017.

If we talk about the structure of web traffic depending on the type of device, then most of the traffic is generated by mobile users (52%, which is 4% higher than last year). Only 43% of all web pages are visited from desktops, which is 3% less than last year.

North, Western and Southern Europe, as well as North America, boast the highest Internet penetration rates - 74% -94% of the total population use the World Wide Web. In Russia, 110 million people use the Internet - 76% of the total population.

The global social media audience has grown by 13% since January 2017. The fastest growing user base is in Saudi Arabia. Since January 2017, their number has increased by 32%, with a global average of 17%. Other countries with the highest growth rates are India, Indonesia and Ghana. The reason for the jump was the development of technology, which made it easier for the population to access social platforms. The slowest growing social networks were in the UAE, South Korea and the UK -<5%. В России пользователей соцсетей стало на 8 826 000 человек больше (+15% к прошлогоднему значению).

Since the largest proportion of users are on Facebook, it would be helpful to know how the content you post will perform on this social network and what features to use to increase its reach. According to the statistics of the social network, the average publication coverage is 10.7%, while organic posts have 8% (organic coverage in Russia is 11.3%), and for paid posts this value is 26.8% (27.4% in Russia) ... Organic and paid Facebook posts have huge potential. It is important to correctly target posts to get quality leads.

You can get a more complete picture of the state of the global digital market in 2018 by studying our review of the Internet 2017-2018 in the world and in Russia: statistics and trends, which we prepared based on the Global Digital 2018 study.

Popularity of social networks by country

The graph from the GlobalWebIndex report below, based on a survey of Internet users, perfectly reflects the popularity of various social networks by country. Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are among the ten most active audiences for each of the social networks, and are significantly ahead of the USA, UK and European countries.

Of the four social networks represented (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+), Russians are the most active users of the video service. Twitter and Google+ are relatively often used by only 20% of our compatriots, while Facebook is regularly viewed by just over 40%.

Demographic statistics of social media usage

As the graph shows, there is a similar pattern of social media usage across age groups. This suggests that social media has reached a stage of maturity where it can reach all demographic groups regardless of age and gender. The exceptions are Instagram and Tumblr, with a younger audience.

Social media audience engagement strategies

According to The State of Social 2018 survey, 96% of brands have a presence on Facebook.

At the same time, only half of the respondents have a documented SMM strategy. Big business is a little more responsible in this matter than small companies (60% said they have such a document).

When it comes to the types of content brands publish, images, links and copy are leading the way. While video posts tend to get the most engagement, video content only ranks fourth here. This is primarily due to the complexity of creating such materials.

At the end of 2017, Smart Insights, together with Clutch, conducted a survey among business representatives, in which they asked which of the social networks are of the greatest value to them. It turned out that among B2C companies, Facebook is considered the most effective (93% of respondents), and most B2B companies prefer LinkedIn (93%).

The value of social media for brands in 2018

1. If you think that your target audience is not sitting in social networks, you are mistaken.

Through social networks, you can reach any audience, regardless of gender, age, social status. 98% of online consumers are registered in social networks, quite a large part of them are adults 55-64 years old.

1. A third of all time on the Internet, people devote to social networks.

The average user spends 2 hours 15 minutes a day flipping through the feed and chatting on social platforms, and young people 16-24 years old spend almost three hours. If you do not consider SMM as a channel for attracting customers, then you voluntarily cede the attention of your target audience to competitors.

1. Half of all social media users follow brand pages.

4 out of 10 Internet users follow their favorite companies' social media pages, and a quarter follow brands when they plan to buy something. People have a positive attitude towards such content, so an active presence in social media is of great value for companies.

1. Social media is the main source of information for consumers.

People aged 16-24 prefer to search for brand information on social media, rather than search engines. A quarter of users in this age group admit that a large number of likes on a brand page can lead them to buy. In the 35-44 age group, 20% of the respondents stated the same. Social commerce can be considered one of the main channels for generating profit, which means that it is important to diversify efforts, and not rely on advertising alone.

1. Watching videos is a favorite activity on social networks.

Facebook is the largest social network in terms of the number of users, but YouTube takes the first place in terms of traffic and the reason is in the video. Video posts receive the most active response, which is why leading brands are constantly posting videos on their pages.

In preparing the article, the following materials were used:

1. Global Social Media Research Summary 2018 by Smart Insights
2. Report The State of Social 2018 by Social Media Week
3. The Biggest Social Media Trends Shaping 2018 article published on the GlobalWebIndex blog
4. Social Networks Study: How social networks were used in 2017 by Metricool analytical agency
5. Global Digital 2018 report package by WeAreSocial analytical agency

Do you want to order the maintenance of your company's communities on social networks? Contact us by phone:

Who is more interested in social media and who is indifferent to them? How does the audience of each of the popular social networks differ from each other? All this and a little more - in our new material dedicated to the published data of a sociological study of popular Internet sites.

The growing popularity of social networks is surprising in its constancy. Willy-nilly, thoughts creep in that this can be interrupted, because everything has a "ceiling". But so far this does not threaten anyone. People cannot live without social platforms. They spend a lot of time on them.

We have to understand in more detail what users are doing here.

Let's talk about social media usage statistics!

Instagram stats

• The most popular Instagram page is the social network profile itself. He boasts 233 million followers;
• 80% of people are subscribed to at least one business account. Of these, 200 million are actively following the brand pages;
• Stories on Instagram are 2 times more popular than Snapchat;
• 85% of popular global brands have an account on the mentioned social network.

YouTube statistics

Twitter statistics

VK statistics

• 97 million users visit the social network daily;
• 5 billion messages - briefly about the daily correspondence of VK users;
• 77% of users log into VK from mobile devices;
• VKontakte ranks 2nd in terms of activity among all social platforms. 1st place went to YouTube (these statistics are taken for Russia and the CIS countries);
• 9 billion records are viewed by netizens every day.

Odnoklassniki statistics

• The social network has 330 million users, and these numbers are constantly growing;
• The vast majority of site users are over 25 years old and under 34 years old;
• Small towns with a population of up to 100,000 people account for 40% of the audience;
• For 1 month, social network users give each other more than 1.5 billion gifts (their price tag ranges from 1 to 60 rubles);
• Odnoklassniki's record: 500 million video views in 24 hours.

It should be noted that colossal money is spent annually on SMM. This once again confirms the effectiveness of this tool. Moreover, these indicators are constantly hitting the hill! It's time to draw conclusions.

According to various sources, the social network VKontakte is either the first or the second most popular site in Russia. Be that as it may, no one gives the third place to the "living legend" VK.com. The monthly audience of the social network is approaching 54 million people, of which almost 22 million are authors, that is, they leave public messages at least once a month. Thus, the importance of being on this site from the point of view of SMM seems obvious and undeniable. But to whom do we turn, to whom do we offer goods and services, whom do we mean by the phrase “VKontakte audience”? We will tell about all this.

Is VKontakte a social network for schoolchildren?

While another popular Russian social network, Odnoklassniki, has a reputation as a site for pensioners, VKontakte suffers from the opposite stereotype - they say, “one shkolota hangs out here”. Because of this, the platform is often not taken seriously, because what can you take from unreasonable children and adolescents who are sitting here out of carelessness and insufficient academic load?

If we move away from “sofa sociology” and turn to professional sociologists, then a completely different picture will open to our eyes. According to experts in the field of media, the audience of VKontakte today covers almost the entire population of Russia and some other countries of the former USSR. VK attracts users with its ease, convenience and intuitive use. It is noteworthy that the ranks of VKontakte continue to grow by users of other social networks. For example, in recent years, the so-called upper segment of the audience has moved to the territory of VKontakte - educated solvent townspeople who, as a rule, previously preferred Facebook. The share of users of the age category 35+, who were traditionally considered residents of Odnoklassniki, also increased. At the same time, of course, different age groups are not uniformly represented in the social network.

Who is the core of the VKontakte audience? According to some estimates, these are people of 18-24 years old, and there is a trend of gradual maturation of the audience. According to other estimates, these are people aged 25–34, which, by the way, coincides with the core of the Odnoklassniki audience. In any case, talking about VK.com as a social network for schoolchildren is silly today. Apparently, this stereotype goes back to 2007, when young people actually spent hours on VKontakte and produced appropriate “youth” content. Since even today the most viral content begins to spread from old public pages launched back in the era of "schoolchildren", the site cannot finally free itself from its "school" image.

It is important to understand that schoolchildren who mastered the social network almost ten years ago have since grown up and become students, or even have already received crusts about higher education. Currently, VK users are quite mature, socially and economically active people.

It is interesting to look at geography statistics as well. According to representatives of VKontakte, the social network is used in all regions of the Russian Federation, as well as in the countries of the Customs Union, near and far abroad. Among Runet users, the social network VKontakte is most loved by residents of large and medium-sized cities - as expected, you can see Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and other megalopolises as leaders. An interesting detail: on average, each user spends about 40 minutes daily on the social network, and spends this time very actively - reading news, creating content and communicating in dialogues.

In summary, we can say that the target audience of VKontakte is current or yesterday's students, young professionals and people of early middle age. As far as geography is concerned, even here the site practically knows no boundaries. The social network is a little more interesting to Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents than the somewhat provincial Odnoklassniki, however, it is very popular in the regions as well.

What distinguishes VKontakte users from the regulars of other social networks?

Do users of VKontakte have some kind of uniformity, common identity, mentality, or is it a motley world of dissimilar people? Experts insist that certain features of perception and behavior are still characteristic of the vast majority of users.

So, the audience of "VKontakte" is mainly visuals, who do not cherish souls in collections, photo stories, infographics. Even in purely textual content, they value clarity, visualization of the main theses. Unlike Odnoklassniki users, who are more focused on personal communication, VK users actively read the news feed, which means that the frequency and volume of posting matters. It is necessary to maintain a balance: do not bother with constant flickering, but also regularly remind of yourself with bright, meaningful posts.

When working with an audience on VKontakte, it is important to avoid a one-sided approach and take into account all the relevant parameters - age, geography, wealth, interests of users and much more. Act according to your business goals and rely on real numbers. Talk to users in the same language and they will surely hear you!

According to recent studies of the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, about 90% of all Internet users regularly visit social networks. At the same time, many of them quite comfortably use not one, but several social networks at once. A correct understanding of which contingent of Internet users is focused on a particular resource is the main guarantee of successful website promotion on social networks.

Who are we looking for?

To get started, take a pencil in hand and try to characterize the people you see as potential visitors to your site and your future customers. This is your target audience. Designate a list of key parameters for it, for example:

Geographical position;

• Having children;

  Occupation;

  Social status;

  Interests;

Don't take this example as a template. Your criteria for determining the target audience may be radically different from those proposed. The point is to describe as accurately as possible the circle of users you need. Is the list ready? Then we sit down at the microscope and carefully look at what the user of this or that social network is. Getting acquainted with the audience of social networks, we immediately compare it with our potential clients. We systematically compose for ourselves our own rating of "professional suitability" of social networks according to your criteria. Go!

In contact with

One of the most popular social networks covers the entire Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, while being fairly well represented in the regions. Contrary to the prevailing opinion about the childhood age of the average user, recently the VKontakte audience has noticeably matured. The average age of the skeleton is estimated at 20-30 years.

People come here mainly for communication, actively sharing music, photos and various links. For communication "by interests" groups of various topics are created. The most popular of them have over 5,000,000 subscribers, among which the number of regular visitors reaches 200,000.

In terms of gender, VKontakte maintains an almost perfect balance, and the average time spent by a user on this resource is 30 minutes.

Classmates

As Odnoklassniki does not try to rejuvenate its users, the social network continues to be the main Runet platform for communication of “former” classmates, classmates, colleagues, etc. The audience is mostly female (70%), and the average age of users is around 30-40 years old. It is this social network that is preferred by the most aged users of the network, and for many it is associated with a meeting place for housewives.

Of the more than 40 million Odnoklassniki army, more than half of the "fighters" are identified as Muscovites, and the rest are in approximately equal proportions foreigners or representatives of other Russian cities. Users are divided into groups (common interests) and communities (places of work, study, etc.), and the average time spent on the site by a user, according to various estimates, is about 25 minutes.

How do you succeed?

Odnoklassniki, like VKontakte, are a fairly universal platform, but here constant contact with your audience is very important for successful promotion. More than anyone else, there will be successful promotion of services and goods that do not require high paying capacity from the audience, as well as services localized in a certain region. Provide up-to-date information, please with promotions, timely answer questions and respond to criticism, and the success of your company is guaranteed!

Facebook

The Facebook audience is generally the most professionally advanced segment of the population. As a rule, these are serious specialists covering a wide field of professional activity. It is not difficult to meet individual entrepreneurs, Internet activists, IT specialists, as well as representatives of the creative class, designers, advertisers ... The age of the main visitors to this network ranges from 25-50 years. And from the point of view of the geographical location of users, residents of large cities are more represented here. The main Facebook audience is characterized by social status and income at least average. At the same time, despite the seeming seriousness of the average user, many of them are by no means alien to various tests, flash games and other entertainments that social networks often use to gain popularity.

Unlike domestic VK and OK, Facebook has access to an international audience, as well as a list of tools for promoting business pages, including finely targeted advertising (not cheap, but very effective if used correctly).

Who will be successful?

The most promising from the point of view of promotion here will be services and goods aimed at a serious solvent audience. Conferences, business trainings and seminars will definitely be in demand here. Also, design companies will feel right at home. If you are planning to expand your activities outside of Russia, you should definitely focus on promoting in this social network. Read our tips on how not to go broke.

Twitter

Twitter has a special format that makes this resource more dynamic. The average Twitter user spans a wider age range from 20 to 40, with the male part slightly prevailing over the fair half. The excellent integration of the social network with mobile devices has led to the fact that about 75% of its users come here through their gadgets. Here you will find many business people who know the value of their time and will not waste it. The 4 minutes a day that a Twitter user spends on the network is an excellent confirmation of this.

Many famous people, politicians, athletes, show business stars and public figures have Twitter accounts.

Who is it for?

Youtube

The popularity of YouTube in Runet is constantly growing every year and today the monthly audience of this video hosting is estimated at at least 50 million people. In general, this platform has localizations in 75 countries, which presents incredibly wide opportunities for capturing an audience at the international level. However, in terms of getting visitors to your site, you shouldn't expect great achievements from YouTube. Even a hundred thousand views with tens of thousands of "likes" can bring a small number of visitors to your site.

What's the best way to use it?

Given the high popularity of YouTube, search engines simply cannot ignore its multi-million dollar audience. Therefore, videos posted on your channel will certainly have a positive impact on the ranking of your brand in search engines (for similar reasons, by the way, do not forget about). It is an excellent tool for promoting a brand, including in the international arena. And with the help of some secrets, you can raise the effectiveness of video marketing to a professional level.

Instagram & Pinterest

These photo services were able to gain high popularity with us not so recently. While Instagram is more open to the possibility of using mobile gadgets, Pinterest is more focused on the desktop user. Despite this, the audience of these social networks is quite close. A typical user is a young person (girl) under the age of 24. As a rule, these are the most advanced users, mainly from large cities. Similar to Twitter, Instagram offers convenient ways to use hashtags effectively.

Who is it for?

Adhering to the principle of the adage "it's better to see once than hear 100", Instagram and Pinterest provide great opportunities for promoting brands that are easy to visualize. This is a great way to express yourself if your product or service is visually aesthetic and attractive. Professional photographers, event planners, handicraftsmen and home bakers will find their audience easy here.

At the same time, it is more adapted to the sphere of decor and handmade, and is a more versatile tool.

Do not forget:

The above description of the resources most widespread in the Russian-language Internet characterizes only their main audience, the so-called "backbone". The number of social media users is huge, and who knows what kind of atypical representative you will find in this or that community.