Never Underestimate The Power of Social Media

“Brands that ignore social media will die. It’s that simple”

We all might have noticed a huge shift in spending our leisure time by scrolling the feed of our social media applications instead of book-reading and traveling. Post the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of mobile phones in every house has increased due to various reasons like online classes, work-from-home, etc. The first and foremost thing we do after unboxing our mobile phone is installing applications like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. which are all social media applications. Most of the above-mentioned applications are now automatically available with our mobile phones. So, we create an account and log in with our credentials, so that we can connect with our friends and families. Every day of our life, we are witnessing an increase in the usage of social media platforms. The time spent on social apps has seen steady growth for the past 3 years. There is a 30% increase in the time spent on social media platforms from 2018 to 2021, that's why social media marketing companies evolve and give exponential growth of new businesses.  

The average annual salary of a Social Media Manager is 3,46,000 while the highest salary earned is 7,38,000. It is now time to know the statistics and data of various social media platforms enabling you to understand their real power

Why Are Social Media Trends Important?

Only by understanding the trends of Social Media platforms, brands will be able to decide and allocate a budget for advertisements and promotions. With various social media platforms, not every platform will work well for all types of businesses. For example, the fashion industry will have favorable results on Instagram whereas a software company can have a better reach on LinkedIn or Facebook. Also, the advertising cost varies with every platform and the Return on Advertising Spend(ROAS) may vary with the time and audience of each social media application. You will be able to analyze the outlook and user’s behavior over these platforms and push relevant content accordingly. With various options like pictures, carousels, videos, IGTV videos, Reels, Live videos, Stories, it is obvious that we get confused to choose the right content to achieve the goals of the business. So, these data and facts from App Annie’s ‘Evolution of Social Apps’ report will help you in understanding consumer psychology and decide accordingly

Highlights Of App Annie’s Report:

One of the most important findings of the recent App Annie’s Report is that Live Streaming has been the new frontier for Social Media. As we discussed earlier, the release of new versions of every mobile phone and increasing purchase has ultimately increased the download of social apps. The report says that 74 billion social apps are downloaded to date with 4.7 billion downloads in the first half of 2021 alone. 

Apart from the downloads, the in-app spending on social media applications by people has also increased tremendously. $22.2 billion has been spent on social apps to date with the Asian countries alone contributing more than $10 billion. 3.2 billion dollars has been spent by users in H1 2021 alone, which is a 50% increase in YoY.  App Annie projects that the in-app spending will amount to $6.78 billion this year and will reach a massive $78 billion by the year 2025. These data points reveal that apps that are focusing to adopt various e-commerce options will have a boom leading to multiple revenue streams and opportunities for brands and influencers. 

Video content is at the forefront of the evolving social landscape with live streaming setting fuel for future growth. The total time spent on social media applications that emphasize live streaming has surpassed half a trillion hours on Android. The apps have also outpaced its other content elements like chat and photos. Thus, influencers and brands should start focusing on making their live videos more interesting by adding quality content and fascinating elements. 

The outbreak of COVID-19 has made these live stream videos the replacement for social outings during the lockdown. Hence, it is obvious that people are spending more time on social media platforms meeting their friends, families, and fans virtually with these live streaming options. Various events and interviews were also hosted as live videos as physical meetings and outings were not allowed. Indeed, to combine the boom of E-commerce and live streaming videos, Facebook is trying to implement shopping live streams in its main app and on Instagram as well. 

Asia contributes almost 60% of downloads on Social apps with India topping the list by surpassing 1.5 billion downloads during the first half of 2021; US, Japan, and China are the top three countries where the in-app spending was high during the same periods, states the report. 30% of consumer spending on in-app purchases in the US was spent with the support of Content Creators and Live Streamers.

Tik Tok has ranked first concerning the download among the social, communication, photo & video and Entertainment apps. Though Tik Tok has an upper hand in downloads, YouTube ranks first on the time and money spent by the users during H1 2021. 

We think that we have bombarded your brain with all these statistics and data relating to the trends of social media over the last decade. Make a proper analysis with the available data and decide the amount and platform to spend for ads and the time to spend creating quality content. Proper planning and strategizing can take you to heights

Also Read – How To Optimize Your Social Media Profiles For Maximum Engagement