It still seems to me that many companies are not taking social media as seriously as they should – they either don’t believe in its potential as a communications and engagement channel or they don’t put enough effort into their activities to foster real relationships. This in my opinion really is a missed opportunity, so I wonder: What is it that is going to make skeptics open their eyes?

Social media has been around for over a decade now and has been gaining more and more power and relevance as it has become a normal part of people’s everyday life. It’s certainly not a hype, nor a fad. To substantiate this with some actual data, here’s what a research performed by Experian Hitwise found: In 2012 the UK spent 37 billion hours online; 13 minutes of each hour were dedicated entirely to social media.

As you can see in the image social media is the biggest element taking up people’s time. Email – just 2 minutes; news – 3 minutes, funnily enough just as long as ‘adult.’ I am not surprised about people spending only 3 minutes reading the news, as the news now comes directly to us via and on social media channels. As Brian Solis says, “news no longer breaks, it tweets.”

The research is indeed only focused on one country, but I could imagine that this number is without doubt higher in the US (the early adopter or rather the pioneers in social media), whereas in Germany for example it would be slightly lower, but still significant in comparison to other online activities.

How much time do you spend on social media?

I, for one, am not sure if I want to answer this question :-P Can you guess how much time I spend on social media?

Image courtesy of smarnad/freedigitalphotos.net