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Social Media by the Numbers

Lesson 4 from: Developing a Social Media Strategy for Photographers

Colby Brown

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Lesson Info

4. Social Media by the Numbers

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

13:12
2

Ages of the Internet

18:47
3

What is Social Media?

06:36
4

Social Media by the Numbers

08:19
5

How Social Media Changed the Photo Industry

17:02
6

Social Media Myths

19:13
7

Finding Value in Social Media

38:58
8

How does Noise Effect Social Media?

05:18

Lesson Info

Social Media by the Numbers

Global numbers. Right now, generally, the world's population is around 7.4 billion people, 3.4 billion of those are active internet users. It's growing generally between 10% to 20% every year, or has been at least for the last couple of years. There's huge, like, right now, North America is something at like 90% active internet users compared to potential. Something like that. It's really high percentages. But you have places in Brazil, in India, in Africa they're still trying to get to, which is why you see companies like Facebook and Instagram actively trying to court and get people on the internet, because they see them as valuable. They want to sell ads to them. 2.3 billion of those active internet users are active on social media, which means generally that they're active at least a couple of times a week, if not more so. That's a huge number. It's a lot of numbers for potential clients, for inspiration, for eyes, for use, for engagement, whatever it is. We have 1.86 billion activ...

e internet mobile social media users. So essentially, the idea that of the 2.3 billion active people that are on social media, mobile is playing a huge game, and this is important because the companies know this, and what they're doing is they're changing how their social platforms are operating on a mobile platform. So, on your phone. And they're changing this monthly. They're coming up with new updates. They're trying to sit there and say, "How can we create the better ads? How can we have more features?" It's this reason, this specific point, is why Instagram, for example, it's highly recommended that you post mostly vertical images. It's because it's viewed mostly on a phone, and a lot of the other networks are catching on. Facebook itself is seeing drastic growth in its mobile usage, and that's going to affect the type of content you want to share out there because you want to share out content in the most accepted, less barriers to entry form as you can, so that you get the most engagement, interaction, and communication. A quick sip here. So, social media user numbers. Let's talk about this. Facebook, 1.7 billion people are on Facebook. Again, it's hard to ignore. That's a big number. It's a lot of people that you could potentially engaging with to get to follow your work, to learn from, everything. YouTube has over a billion users on YouTube itself. And right now, a YouTube video actually pays. If you guys are interested in video or looking to make additional revenue streams, YouTube over Facebook is going to give you more value because they actually pay based on their advertising, whereas Facebook, at least currently, your video...Benjamin Von Wong's has 20 million. He doesn't get a penny from that. LinkedIn, 450 million active user. Or not active. 450 million users are on the network. Instagram, 400 million. Twitter, 315. Twitter's kind of stagnant a little bit. They haven't grown too much in the last few years, but again, still a fun platform. Snapchat, 100 million users, but it's been growth like this. They've kind of come out with a bat and there's just a lot of people on it. Google+ active users now has probably dropped less than 25 million, but again, it's still an interesting network, specifically for photographers in terms of communities and things like that. We're going to talk about that. So, the most active social networks. Users, on average, spend over a thousand minutes on Facebook every single month. Snapchat, 350 minutes per month. Instagram, 300 minutes per month. Pinterest, 120 minutes. Twitter, 120 minutes as well. Google+, 80 minutes per month. All these are important to know because you can see just kind of the type of activity that has potential for you. Facebook, there's just people on it all the time. Some of you guys are probably on right now. It's, like, quiet in there, I don't know. Maybe you guys are sitting there and posting stuff out there. But you're probably on it. Even if you don't know you're on it, you're probably on it. Snapchat is, again, has increased popularity, so it's kind of a younger demographic, but people are always sending snaps out there. Instagram. How many times are we just kind of flipping through the screen and double tapping images and engaging and commenting? It's good information to know because it helped dictate where you might want to be. So, social media advertising. Here's some other interesting statistics that I thought was important. So, this was a study that was done with social media marketing in mind, so these are like marketing firms that kind of put this stuff together. So, 86% of marketers say that they engage in both paid and organic social media marketing. So 86% of people out there that are marketing for their businesses, and this maybe not includes small businesses, but certainly, in general, for marketing firms, it went on, are saying that they're both paying and using organic social media activities. Nearly 60% think that paid social media is actually more effective than organic social media. Why? Because you can target who you want to target, which we will talk about. Facebook is the number one for market departments. It's where they spend the most money. And I will tell you right now, we will talk about it. Companies are spending exorbitant amounts of money on Instagram and Snapchat. I know influencers, people that have far more followers than I do on Instagram that are getting paid $8,000 a post by major companies. I make much less than that per post. It's still good money, but not $8,000. Social media is more effective than all traditional marketing tactics. And what I mean by that is that people are moving to social media to market their products, their services, their businesses, their brands, and they're spending more money, they have more of a focus than on TV ads, radio ads, publications. Everything is shifting over to social media. So, getting a grasp and developing a social media strategy, which is why all of you guys are here and all you guys are watching live, is super important because if you don't develop a strategy, if you don't have a purpose or a direction, you're going to get left behind, and no one wants to be left behind. So, interaction rates per 1,000 followers. So this is average based on millions of different accounts that were researched. So on Instagram, if you have 1,000 followers, on average per post, you should be getting between 52 to 70 interactions per post. That's likes and comments, because that's all you can really do on Instagram. Facebook, generally, if it's a business account, it's more so like 8 to 10. Twitter, one to two. LinkedIn, two to four. Actually, in LinkedIn, you can do long form post now, which is really great on LinkedIn. I highly recommend doing it. It's a different market, and again, we'll talk about that. But going back really quick, these are really important to understand because one of the biggest questions that I get from social media is like, "Why aren't people seeing my stuff?" And we're going to talk about algorithms, about why you're getting this stuff, but these are average rates. So if you sit there and you see something like this and you're either higher or lower, kind of getting a feel for where you're at for your social platforms. If you're Instagram and you're like, "I got 1,000 followers. Why do only 50 people care?" Well, it's because a lot of people aren't seeing it. And we're going to talk about that.

Ratings and Reviews

Giles Rocholl
 

This course is designed to help you develop a Social Media strategy if you are Photographer. I am a professional photographer with over 37 years of experience and although I know how to use Facebook and Instagram I didn't really understand how to use them to achieve business and personal goals. I started watching this course about 2 months ago and have just finished it due to work commitments. However I have put into practice his advice as I learnt new understanding and my following has grown rapidly. Also my work load and quality of assignment has increased dramatically too. It takes some brain rewiring to understand how social media has taken the place of many traditional media streams but Colby does an excellent job of painting a picture that helps hugely. The best thing about Colby's strategy is that it is real life, honest and something I feel I can personally and ethically live with happily. I happily endorse this course and recommend it.

Beatriz Stollnitz
 

I was very lucky to be in the audience for this class. Colby is an incredible instructor - he has the rare combination of being successful, knowledgeable and talented, but at the same time down to earth, approachable and genuinely willing to help others succeed. The content presented is actionable - I have so many ideas of things that I can do right now that can help my online presence! I can't wait to get started!

Rob Lettieri
 

I learned a few things I never knew...especially the whole inside scoop on LinkedIn....who knew??? Easy to listen to....a lot of deflection to later answers to questions...which would have made a director allow for less...why ask if you cant answer just then....and he says every question is a "great question" but it clearly isn't in a few cases....so credibility goes down...I understand positive enforcement for the millennials...but every question is not great. otherwise easy to follow and straightforward....

Student Work

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