StatCounter‘s penetration stats for key social networks in South Africa – as at January 2014 – show interesting skews:
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Notice that Facebook – the king of social networks – and Twitter have higher penetration on mobile devices, while Pinterest, Youtube and linkedIn have higher penetration on desktop?
The 2 of the possible reasons for the varying penetration levels include the following:
- All the main social networks have varying user profiles; with LinkedIn providing the most distinct example of a professional male user with a median age of 40; who would most likely work in the office and thus has access to a desktop.
- These social networks are used for varying purposes. Twitter is characterised by brief issue-driven communications, and has now effectively become the source for breaking news and thus is accessed on the go; while Youtube needs stable and reliable bandwidth for streaming videos, and fixed Internet is a better choice at this stage in South Africa.
Interestingly, StatCounter shows that access to Internet using desktops in South Africa has more than halved to 36% in the last year; while access using mobile phones grew exponentially, making the latter the largest contributor to Internet access since October 2013.
The latest stats for access to the Internet by platform have obvious implications for brands that are active on digital media. Is your brand one of them? Are you ensuring that your strategy is informed by the understanding of different user profiles, usage patterns and main platforms used to access the main social networks? Talk to us if you need assistance with in-depth analysis of social media.
