Social Media 2012 Recap

As we reflect on the past year, we thought it would also be appropriate to reflect on the growth and development of some of 2012’s most popular social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. We hope you enjoy this end of the year 2012 social media recap.

Facebook:

• On February 4th, Facebook celebrated its eighth birthday.

• On May 18th, Facebook became a publicly tradable company.

• On May 19th, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg married his college girlfriend Priscilla Chan.

• In early September, Facebook purchased the photo sharing app Instagram.

• Facebook began implementing the “Timeline” profile to all users in September.

• On October 4th, Facebook reached 1 Billion users. To put this number into perspective, there are approximately 7 billion people on the entire planet.

• Facebook enabled emoticons into messages and comments.

• Users can now edit comments after posting.

• Facebook played an influential role in the 2012 presidential election through candidate use and the use of supporters.

• Facebook gaming saw a large increase, with about 250 million users playing in 2012.

• Facebook addiction is a main contributor to social media distractions that are estimated to cost the U.S. economy $650 billion a year.

Twitter:

• Twitter celebrated its sixth birthday in March.

• There are an average 175 million tweets sent per day in 2012.

• 56% of customer tweets to companies are ignored.

• The most retweeted tweet ever was tweeted in 2012 by Barack Obama. His victory tweet was retweeted over 800,000 times.

• The 2012 Presidential election broke Twitter records. Election Day was easily the most tweeted about event in US Political history.

• The top three countries on Twitter are the USA (170 million), Brazil (33 million), and Japan (30 million).

• 1 million accounts are added to Twitter every day in 2012.

• 50% of Twitter users now use the network via mobile.

• 34% of marketers have created leads via Twitter.

Pinterest:

• In January, 80% of Pinterest users were women. In March, Pinterest saw an increase in male users with 72% of users being women and 28% being men.

• The number of unique visitors the site saw in March, 2012 was 4 million, which was a 2 million increase from January of the same year.

• Daily Pinterest users have increased by 145% since January of 2012.

• On March 23rd, Pinterest updated its Terms of Service in response to the negative out roar it received.

• In early April, Pinterest became the third largest social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter.

• In May, Pinterest raised $100 million to fund international expansion.

• In early August, Pinterest dropped invites and became open for everyone.

• Also in early August, Pinterest introduced an app for Androids and ipads.

• In early November, Pinterest introduced the “secret” board function that allows users to keep boards private and only available to those they wish to share with.

• The White House joined Pinterest in early December.

What are your thoughts on these three social networking leaders and the year they had in 2012? Do you think they will continue to grow and flourish in 2013, or will they see a decline in users? Comment below and let us know!Click here to learn more about our social media processes!