Internet Usage Statistics 2011

Each year the numbers come out on Internet usage.  In 2011 social media made another jump.  Facebook being the majority of that online social media usage. 

From a marketing standpoint you must understand how people are using the Internet within these subchannels.  Social media is almost predominately being used to communicate between friends and family.  Even though social media is the big buzzword in interactive marketing it's still predominately a way to stay in touch with your friends and family.  We just don't go onto Facebook and look for companies to browse.

However, if you look at the top two subchannels on the Internet (Email and Search) these two do have a lot of business level communications going on.  Search is almost a 100% business oriented as far as people looking for products and services.  Email still has a large percentage that is communications between friends and family but there's a significant amount of business that goes on through email.  As a marketer I would much rather have 10,000 email address of my prospects and customers than 10,000 likes from my prospects and customers on Facebook.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use Facebook as a communications channel.  I'm just saying you need to have a strategy on how you're going to use social media as it relates to how you communicate through your website, sales team, text messaging and especially email.  Make sure you're not putting all your money into the buzzword today and forgetting some very important communication channels.