With 2014 now well underway, everyone is forecasting key trends
for social media. And, there are the amusing,
albeit useless, top 10 lists.
Is there any “meat” out there – something that you can help
guide your social media decisions?
Yes.
This week, two reports were released that contain useful
data and helpful insights.
The first is the Social
Media Update 2013 from the folks at the Pew Research Center. The findings are both intuitive and
surprising. For example, 73% of online
adults now use a social networking site, and Facebook dominates. (Okay…this
falls into the “intuitively obvious” category.)
However, Instagram users are just as likely as Facebook users to sneak
away to check their site regularly.
The second piece of research that caught our eye this
week was the 2014
Nonprofit Communications Trends Report from Kivi Leroux Miller and the
folks at Nonprofit Marketing Guide. This
report analyzes the feedback from 2, 135 nonprofits.
Given that we’re tracking nonprofit use of social
media, we were particularly interested in learning more about which social
media choices nonprofits made in 2013 and anticipated making in 2014. For example, the most important social media
platforms for nonprofits are Facebook (95%), Twitter (64%), YouTube (38%), and LinkedIn
(26%). Yet, in 2014, nonprofits are more
likely to experiment with Instagram and Pinterest.
We’re also conducting research on small business and
nonprofit use of LinkedIn and will be presenting the findings that February American
Marketing Association conference. Our
research indicates that yes, size does matter. And, we’ll be publishing more on
this in the near future.
Stay tuned!
