Social Media Sharing in the World

Social media refers to interaction among people in which they build, share, and/or discuss information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Moreover, social media hinge on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create debate on, and modify user-generated content. They have changed the manner in which organizations, communities and individuals communicate between each other in a substantial way.

The discussion of which social media outlet is the best to share/advertise on is a contention of debate that spans to all four corners of the earth, with everyone having their personal opinion, Recent research from Gigya, has come out and the results are not as obvious as one might expect.
In the 3rd quarter of 2013 (July-September), Facebook was still top dog as the destination where consumers have shared their content.  Twitter and Pinterest increased their share percentage.

The recent research goes further by dividing the content sharing by industry vertical and by region which gives more in-depth information of where each business should be promoting their product/services to hit the right target audience.

eCommerce
Pinterest’s strength as a sharing was most evident on eCommerce sites and apps where it had already taken the lead from social media giant Facebook in the previous quarter and continues to consolidate that lead. To continue increasing their share percentage Pinterest has recently released Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will allow businesses to showcase their most popular ‘pins’ on their own websites and mobile apps.

Travel and Hospitality
Facebook (61%) has continued to assert its dominance as the sharing destination for Travel and Hospitality with its closest competitors, Twitter (14%) and Pinterest (17%), losing even more ground from the previous quarters.

Consumer Brands
The usual 3 are also present at the top of this industry for content sharing. Facebook (41%) and Pinterest (11%) have both experienced increase in share percentage, Facebook had a 5% increase whilst Pinterest had an increase of 9%. Twitter is the only one of the three that has not improved when compared to the 2nd quarter.

The increase in sharing to Pinterest and Facebook is great news for Consumer Brands, because consumers tend to share to share to these platforms when they have a strong emotional connection to the content that they are sharing.

Regional Social Media Sharing
In Europe, according to research from Gigya, content-sharing via Twitter is almost as popular as via Facebook—unlike in any other region in the world.
Facebook was the winner in every region of the world, according to the 3rd quarter 2013 study of clients using Gigya technology to facilitate sharing. Only in Europe, did Twitter come close to Facebook’s lead, however, reaching within 2 percentage points of the social networking giant’s sharing prowess.

Twitter was also relatively popular for sharing in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa, where more than three in 10 clients reported it was the primary social network used to share content.

All-in-all it is very evident that social media and internet marketing will definitely be looked at closely by every company that wants to increase its sales and grow.

Gianluca Fino is the Business Development Executive at Alert.  For more info: [email protected]