Social network usage in 2013

Earlier this month eMarketer published a new long-term estimate on U.S. social network usage and growth. The marketing service predicts that, by 2013, 52% of all U.S. internet users — an estimated 114.6 million — will be regular social network users.

It’s important to remember that these are baseline membership figures: they don’t purport to forecast the depth of an average user’s involvement in 2013 (in terms of time spent and types of activity done). However, this arguably wouldn’t be an illustrative statistic anyway, given that a lot can change in four years. Will people still be uploading their photos to Facebook and Flickr? Will YouTube still be the de facto destination site for user-generated video? Or will things look entirely different?

eMarketer’s forecast should warm the hearts of digital marketers everywhere. Gaining a market share of over half of all U.S. internet users would be an impressive feat. At the same time, opportunistic marketers should spend some time strategizing about how they can prepare for and ride this wave of growth. They can start by asking some key questions of themselves and their organizations:

• Is my marketing team and/or agency quick enough to take advantage of new innovations in social networks and social media?
• Does my brand have any distinct competitive advantages given the ways in which we are distributing our marketing messages on social networks right now? Has my company captured a unique loyal audience, or are we trying to reach people that have already been activated by our competitors?
• What percentage of our programs depend on traditional marketing and advertising? Can more of our marketing mix be invested in social networks?

By themselves, the answers to these questions probably won’t reveal to you a straight path forward within the world of social networks. But at the very least, they can help you adopt the right strategic and tactical mindset.