45 Essential Social Media Marketing Statistics for 2019

Social media is everywhere. For many people, social media is used daily for entertainment, socialization, and even news consumption -- myself included. 

Additionally, over the last two decades, it has risen as one of the primary marketing channels. 

With over 40% of the world's population on social media, it's critical your business devise an effective social media strategy to reach your intended audience.

But whether you're pitching a social media campaign to your boss or deciding which social media platform your business should put paid advertising behind, it's vital you use data to support your efforts. 

Here, we've compiled a list of 45 essential social media stats to ensure you know where to focus your marketing efforts in 2019 to get the highest ROI. 

Social Media Marketing Statistics/Data 2019 

• 42% of the world's population uses social media. That's 3.2 billion users worldwide. (Emarsys)
• To break it down, 90.4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users. (Emarketer)
• 54% of social browsers use social media to research products. (GlobalWebIndex)
• Each person spends an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes on social networks and messaging. (Globalwebindex)
• 366 million new people started using social media in the past year. That’s more than a million new people joining social media every single day. (Hootsuite)

Facebook Statistics

• Facebook usage among teens is dropping gradually according to the latest social media statistics. While 71% of teens claimed to use the platform in 2015, the number has now dropped to 51%. (Pew Research Center)
• 68% of Americans use Facebook. (Pew Research Center)
• 74% of Facebook users check it daily. (Pew Research Center)
• Most people access Facebook around eight times each day. (SmartInsights)
• 96% of Facebook users access it on mobile. (Statista)
• If your Facebook ads contain images, then they will be between 75% and 90% more effective. (Consumer Acquisition) 
• 93% of social media advertisers use Facebook ads on a regular basis. (Social Media Examiner)
• At least 3% of Facebook profiles are fake. (Facebook)
• The best time to post on Facebook is weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Wednesday is the best day to post while Sundays show the least traffic. (Sprout Social)

Twitter Statistics

• 326 million people use Twitter every month. (PR Newswire)
• 9% more people [than seen in previous reports] are now using Twitter on a daily basis. (PR Newswire)
• 24% of adults in the U.S. use Twitter. (Statista)
• Link clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets. (HubSpot)
• 83% of the people who sent a Tweet to a company and received a response, felt better about the company and were more likely to do business with them. (Twitter)
• Only 3 percent of Tweets about customer service issues call out the company's username with the @ symbol. (Marketing Land)
• People are 31% more likely to recall what they saw on Twitter vs. general online browsing. (Twitter) 
• 53% of users say they bought a product they first saw on Twitter. (WebFX)
• Twitter ads are 11% more effective than TV ads during live events. (Twitter)
• The best times to post on Twitter are Wednesdays at 9am and Fridays at 9am. The best days to post are Tuesday and Wednesday, while Saturday sees the least engagement. (Sprout Social)

Instagram Statistics

• Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, and 500 million of them use it daily. (Instagram)
• Instagram continues to attract a younger audience with 72% of teens saying that they use the platform. (Sprout Social)
• 59% of Instagram users are under the age of 30. (Statista)
• Ad spending on Instagram is 23% higher than on Facebook according to an internal analysis by Merkle. (DigiDay)
• Videos get 21.2% more interactions compared to images and 18.6% more interactions compared to carousels. (Sprout Social)
• 71% of US businesses use Instagram. It surpassed Twitter in business users in 2017. (eMarketer)
• The best times to post on Instagram are Wednesday at 11am and Friday from 10-11am. Wednesday is the overall best day to post while Sunday sees the least amount of engagement. (Sprout Social)

LinkedIn Statistics

• There over 530 million user profiles on LinkedIn. (LinkedIn)
• 80% of social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn. (LinkedIn)
• Over 46% of all social media traffic to company websites comes from LinkedIn. (LinkedIn)
• The best times to post on LinkedIn are Wednesdays from 9-10 a.m. and 12 p.m. The best day for posting is Wednesday and the day with the least engagement is Sunday. (Sprout Social)

YouTube Statistics

• YouTube is the preferred form of social media marketing worldwide. 83% of all consumers prefer it. (Hubspot)
• 54% of all people want marketers to put out more video content, and this is an excellent place to begin. (Hubspot)
• Most of YouTube’s user base is male. The ratio is 55% men to 45% women. (Journalism.org)
• 96% of all teens in the United States use YouTube. (Forrester) 

Social Media Consulting Services 

Many businesses hire external social media consulting agencies to manage their voice and reputation online. Alternatively, some businesses create roles in-house for a social media consultant -- this is someone who is responsible for increasing brand awareness, responding to customer service complaints across social media platforms, and engaging with your audience online. 

Whether you're considering hiring an external social media consulting service or creating a role in-house, take a look at these trends that demonstrate the importance of social media consulting: 

• 71% of consumers who've had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. (Ambassador)
• 80% of companies online are under the impression that they deliver exceptional social media customer service, while only 8% of their customers say they agree. (Smart Insights)
• 73% of marketers believe that their efforts through social media marketing have been "somewhat effective" or "very effective" for their business. (Buffer)
• Social networks are the biggest source of inspiration for consumer purchases with 37% of consumers finding purchase inspiration through the channel. (PWC)
• Social media is the most relevant advertising channel for 50% of Gen Z and 42% of millennials. (Adobe)
• 50% of consumers say that seeing user-generated content would increase their chances of buying products through a brand's social media. (Curalate)

Social Media Consulting Proposal 

All these stats have given you the data you need to work with -- now it's time to put your knowledge to use and create your own social media consulting proposal.

If you're a social media consultant and you're pitching a branding, marketing, or advertising campaign to a client, it's critical you're able to show how you'll help your client grow their business. 

Here are six steps you'll need to take to ensure your social media consulting proposal or business plan is effective: 

1. Set clear goals. Figure out exactly where your company or client wants to go as far as their business and social media numbers. The clearer and more detailed the vision, the better. Follow SMART Goal guidelines to ensure that you're on the right track.
2. Understand your customers. Know who your target demographics are, because these are the people you're trying to reach and engage. Gather your own social media statistics and use existing data your company or client might already have to figure out who's interacting with the business and who might be good future prospects to reach. After you've done your research, you can create useful character personas to help you better understand and categorize customers.
3. Understand your competition. Those "similar-but-different" companies are going to be out there. And, as with most aspects of the business world, the better you know them, the better you can know how to have a leg up on them. You can conduct this research at the same time you're researching your customers, because chances are they're interacting with competitors as well. Once you've gathered the data on your competitors, one of the most effective ways to use it is to figure out where there might be voids in their services that your business can fill.
4. Be familiar with any existing social media presence. If you're hired to run a company's social media accounts, it's critical you know about any previous social media postings, accounts, and experiments. By understanding what your client has already tried, you're better equipped to take them where they need to go in the future.
5. Don't forget to pull your data. Before your new implemented strategies go underway, it's important to collect a baseline of how it was before, so that you have something to measure against in the future. For example, if you take inventory of how many views you're getting on Instagram Stories before the new strategy is in effect, you can see if the new ideas are improving these numbers or not. It's important to keep a close eye on what is affecting your growth (positively or negatively) so that you know when you're on the right track or when you need to try something new so your business can keep growing.
6. Develop your strategy based on your findings. Define what your content will be, what platforms it will be distributed on, and how it will vary between platforms. Figure out smaller details at this stage too, like your client's tone and voice on social media (either what it currently is or what it should be), along with design and style elements. Always be sure you're staying true to your company or client's brand by consulting with existing materials like mission statements, guides, or brand books.

Finally, take a look at HubSpot's free Marketing proposal template (useful for both PDF & Word) to get you started creating a comprehensive social media consulting proposal. 

Let data drive your social strategy.

Social media marketing statistics can show you the state of the business world today, where it might be going, and how you can ensure your business is continuously meeting customers where they want to be met. Use these statistics to your advantage to help you understand what you need to do to effectively use social media for your business today.