A Facebook friend of mine shared a really cool video today which dramatically presents some interesting social media stats.
Sounds very impressive – and it is to a degree. But social media use pales in comparison to email use – and email is supposedly so antiquated.
- If email was a country, its 1.4 billion users would make it the largest in the world. Bigger than China, bigger than the populations of the USA and European Union combined.
- 247 billion emails are sent each day. That’s one email every 0.00000035 seconds.
- In the time it takes you to read this sentence, some 20 million emails entered cyberspace.
- Read more interesting email statistics that you can use at parties to impress your friends.
* Of course, these email stats would sound even more impressive if they were presented with some really cool music like the video above.
The fact that 300 million people use Facebook or that 1.4 Billion people use email doesn’t make it any easier for any of us to reach them all. Most people in the world have a phone too – but it would cost a lot of money (and time) to call them all and pitch your products and services. The likelihood that someone will share your post in Facebook is the same that a recipient will forward your email to a friend. If it’s a good status update or a good email, it may gain traction. If it isn’t worth sharing, it probably won’t be shared.
While the headline 300 Million Facebook Users might attract the attention of some marketers, the reality is that those 300 million people aren’t all connected to each other. Most users have a few dozen or a few hundred ‘friends’ and their influence isn’t any better than yours in the larger market. That’s not to say that their influence isn’t important. It certainly is – especially within their small network of friends. Just don’t think that engaging on Facebook or Twitter is going to magically give you an opportunity to communicate with any significant percentage of its users. The same rules apply. You still have to create something that people think is worth sharing. You still have to set yourself apart from your competitors. You still have to provide great value, a compelling argument and wonderful service. You still have to have [a lot of] luck to make your message go viral.
Social media is wonderful in that it encourages us to engage in dialog with individuals rather than broadcasting a monologue to an unsolicited group of people. Social media reminds us how important it is to listen to others. Social media presents opportunities to monitor conversations about specific themes that are relevant to your industry, products and services.
But social media doesn’t miraculously give you an audience of 300 million people – and it doesn’t provide the same direct, per dollar Return on Investment (ROI) as email marketing.
Remember too that 75.4 percent of statistics were made up and that 50% of doctors finished in the bottom half of their class.
