Stats: Social media isn't slowing down. Here are some new areas you need to explore

Social media might be the norm for most of us, but its not about to slow down as it enjoys impressive year-on-year growth. Not only do more people use social media, but they also spend more time on it daily. The prevalence of social media has led to the rise of social media advertising, social commerce, eCommerce and even gaming, said a report conducted by We Are Social and Hootsuite.

The Digital 2022 Global Overview Report said there were 4.62 billion social media users around the world as of January 2022, representing year-on-year growth of more than 10% compared to January 2021. There were 424 million new social media users worldwide in the past year. The number of social media users is equivalent to more than 58% of the world’s total population. Meanwhile, social media took the largest share of connected media time in 2021 and people said they had spent a total of 2 hours and 27 minutes on social channels each day, increasing by 1.4% when compared to January 2021.

In Hong Kong specifically, there are about 6.44 million social media users as of 2021, said the study by Hootsuite and We Are Social. The number of social media users in Hong Kong was approximately 85.6% of the population. Around 44.2% of users aged between 16-64 in Hong Kong use social media for brand research and 34.3% in the same age group use it for work. 

According to industry players in Hong Kong such as Eric Thain, general manager - brand and customer at HK Express and  Rudi Leung, director and founder of Hungry Digital, social commerce will be taken to the next level by both brands and all mainstream social media platforms.

“Consumers can seamlessly experience the whole online shopping journey through a social media channel, from discovery, research, enquiry, checkout to give a review,” said Leung. Thain added on that although China has seen this adoption earlier on, more global social media platforms have introduced social commerce functions to capture this opportunity. This will fuel the growth of this trend.

Facebook remained the world’s most used social platform. However, YouTube was closing the gap, with its audience growing twice as fast as Facebook’s. YouTube had 2.56 billion active users, equivalent to 88% of that of Facebook. The third most used platform was Whatsapp, followed by Instagram.
The report has also studied some social media behaviours. For example, Internet users worldwide were not averse to paying for digital content. More than 7 in 10 working-age internet users (71.5%) said that they had paid for some form of digital content each month. Internet users worldwide spent almost US$300 billion on digital content in 2021, with more than half of this being spent on video games.

Additionally, social media advertising effectiveness was demonstrated by a growing array of data over the past 12 months. More than one in four internet users aged from 16 to 64 (27.6%) discovered new brands, products, and services via social media ads.

When it comes to eCommerce, nearly six in 10 working-age internet users (58.4%) bought something online every week. New additions to this year’s report, meanwhile, showed that social commerce accelerating at an ever-increasing rate. Ads in Facebook Marketplace now reach more than 560 million users each month, equating to more than a quarter of the platform’s total ad reach.

Gaming has grown rapidly in 2021 while the motivation and behaviour of gamers also significantly evolved as interactions and online conversations grew in prominence. The daily time spent using a games console rose to 1 hour and 12 minutes. Meanwhile, more than eight internet users out of 10 aged from 16 to 64 said they had played video games on any device around the world.

Deepa Menon, strategy partner, Asia-Pacific, Wavemaker also shared with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, in an earlier interview that when it comes to social media trends in the future globally, in 2022, there will be better at understanding and experiencing the concept of "metaverse". With many big tech companies making metaverse part of their vision for the future of the internet, the conversation is most definitely expected to expand beyond just gaming.

Menon added that VR and AR are our closest connectors to the Metaverse. It provides us with the much needed engaging, immersive experience that is still not readily available to everyone during the pandemic. Especially now, it has quickly shifted from gimmicks to solving actual pain points for customers.

Related article:

5 top social media agencies in Hong Kong

What's going to be hot in Hong Kong's social media scene in 2022?