Social media rules the world - from democracy to economy, by Thomas Gronenthal.

Social media influences what people think, what they buy and what they do. This is not a statement, it is a fact.

4.4 billion users out of a world population of 7.7 billion are connected to the Internet. There are 3.5 billion active social media users around the globe. The everage time spend on social media is 142 minutes a day, so more than 2 hours. And it’s growing. Every 6.4 seconds a new social media user registers.

Facebook adds 500.000 new users a day, 6 new profiles every second. Today Facebook has 2.3 billion users, WhatsApp 1.6 billion and Instagram 1 billion. All three  belong to one company. Other heavyweights are YouTube with 1.9 and WeChat with 1 billion users.

91 % of retails brands use 2 or more social media channels to reach their potential customers. 74 billion dollars had been spent on social network advertising in 2018 compared to 8.3 billion dollar in 2015. But 96 % of the people that discuss brands online do not follow „those brands“ owned profiles. So it is today more important to be discussed and prevented on social media platforms, but not necessarily on the own fanpage. And it is about young people, but not only. People aged 55-63 are more than twice as likely to engage with branded content than those 28 or younger.

Content is king, behavior even more important, as brand actions on social media that prompt consumers to purchase shows: Boeing responsive 48%, offering promotions 46%, providing education content 42%, sharing interesting visuals 38 %, being funny 36%, offering exclusive content 35%, providing behind the scenes content 27%, trash talking competing brands 10 %. What is th econsumer’s reaction if a brand response quickly on social media: post about positive interaction 45%, share with friends online 37%, buy from brand again 37%, share with friends offline 36%, forget about it 13%, still boycott brand 6%. So s quick reaction is key to be successful on social media.

It is not only about social media platforms, it is also about influence marketing. On WordPress alone 70 million blog posts are published every month. The top 3 content marketing tactics are social media (83%), blogs (80%) and email newsletters (77%).  So public relations is changing from traditional media like magazines, newspapers, TV and radio to new media like blogs and social media channels creating new challenges and following new rules. At the end it is all about inding the best mixture for the message to communicate.