Five Friday Facts #43
News
News
Social network penetration soars in China
Chinese users are taking to social networking like ducks to water. A recent iResearch report on the usage of social networking sites in China in Q2 2012 showed that there are now 410 million users, representing a growth of 9% in the past year and an impressive user penetration of more than 93%.
Microblogs engaged users with a 60% growth in viewing duration over the past year while the time spent on other platforms such as blogs, community sites and independent social networks declined. The 70% penetration rate for microblogs was credited to the ability of these platforms to fulfill both information and socialisation requirements.
Mobile internet & social media usage rise in China
Chinese mobile internet users reached 388 million in June 2012. A recent study showed that the most significant growth was attributed to social media usage which more than doubled year on year from 7% to 18%. Mobile video viewing also grew significantly from 10% to 16%, whilst online shopping rose from 3% to 7%.
Brands form 27.5% of searches for Weibo users
Interestingly, yet another report showed that over a quarter of Weibo users used Sina Weibo to search for information on brands. Here’s the breakdown of the other topics they search on: Hot trending news 70.4%, friends 64.6%, celebrities 53.7%, research for work/studies 45.4%, brand information 27.5% and company information 19.6%.
Luxury marketers go digital
The world is getting more wired, for mass market and affluent clients alike, prompting waves in the luxury market according to an eMarketer report. Luxury brands have been adopting digital channels with close to 70% of them indicating a preference for video and mobile formats. Third in line is social media with almost 50% of luxury brands indicating their intention to increase the use of this marketing channel.
Twitter shares generate more revenue than Facebook & Pinterest
Pinterest has been hailed as the next big thing in terms of website referral traffic. However, a recent revelation from Amazon seems to suggest otherwise. Though users were 13 times more likely to share their purchase on Pinterest than on Twitter, the latter is a greater revenue generator. Twitter referrals average US$33.66 per order vs US$2.08 for Facebook (more 15 times) and US$0.75 on Pinterest (25 times). We wonder if other retailers have a similar experience.