Study: Social Media Use Decreasing

Originally published to ASI

People are spending less time on social media apps, according to a new survey. Information technology company SimilarWeb compared app data from Android users in the first quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016 and found that in almost all countries, time spent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat – the four leading social media apps – was down.

SimilarWeb looked at data from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil and Spain. Instagram saw the biggest year-over-year drop, with usage down 23.7% this year. Twitter was down 23.4%, Snapchat 15.7% and Facebook 8%, according to SimilarWeb’s study. In the U.S. specifically, Instagram usage was down 36.2%, Twitter was down 27.9%, Snapchat dropped 19.2% and Facebook was down 6.7%. People in the U.S. spend the most time on Facebook, logging more than 45 minutes a day on the app on average. Americans were also the most avid Snapchat users, with 18 minutes and 43 seconds of average use on the app.

Distributors and decorators in the promotional products industry say the report underlines the importance of a diverse marketing strategy. “It reminds us to engage on all fronts, social media and local,” Erich Campbell of Black Duck Embroidery and Screen Printing in Albuquerque, NM, wrote in a series of tweets. “If anything, we must care and connect more [with] the few we engage with on social media.”

Danette Gossett of Gossett Marketing (asi/212200) said she has found herself cutting back her Twitter usage, from four times an hour to about once an hour, and has noticed a similar retraction in her top interactors. “I’ve just gotten busier, and although I still feel you need to have a presence, I don’t think that presence needs to be so constant,” she added.

Marshall Atkinson, a sustainability and screen-printing consultant with an active presence on social media, cautions people from taking the study too seriously. He put it bluntly on Twitter: “I’m not buying it. [The] stats are limited from their source pool.”

A few of the leading apps have revealed significant strategy shifts over the past few weeks. In early June, Instagram announced it would be launching new tools for businesses, including special profiles, data analytics and the ability to turn posts into ads. Meanwhile, late last month, Twitter stated that it would allow users to tweet longer messages with more interactive content starting this summer.