SOCIALMEDIASTUDIES 2016

SOCIAL MEDIA IS AN ESTABLISHED PART OF EVERYONE’S LIFE When social media networks first appeared more than a decade ago, many thought that online com- munities would be merely digital places where young people connect and communicate in real-time with their peers around the world. Today, these social platforms are a common part of everyone’s personal and professional life. The penetration of social networks in North America today stands at 59% of the total population, while in Western Europe and East Asia, the penetration rate is 48%. Most importantly, 72% of all internet users today are active on social media. In this context, Facebook reached approximately 1.6 billion users in 2015 with a 15% CAGR 6 from 2012 and 2015. Today, with the rise of video formats, YouTube has become a key player in the search engine area. Twitter also experienced an increase in the number of users from 185 million in 2012 to 305 million in 2015 (a CAGR of 35%). Also, LinkedIn witnessed sound growth of its users, reaching 414 million in 2015 with a 34% CAGR between 2012 and 2015 (see figure 1). Social media is not just a passing phenomenon among younger generations. The usage of social networks by adults increased tenfold during the last decade. Moreover, other social networks such as Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram, VK (Russia), Sina Weibo (China), Baidu Tieba (China) and Renren (China), to mention a few, are witnessing an increase of their users.

NUMBER OF LINKEDIN ACCOUNTS 2010 - 2015

400 450 350 300 250 200 150 100 50

414

34%

347

414 MN ACCOUNTS IN 2015

277

202

145

90

0

CAGR 6

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

NUMBER OF YOUTUBE USER ACCOUNTS 2015

YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people spend hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. > 1 bn Users

6 Compound Annual Growth Rate

15