Erik Qualman says: “Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think”.

I would say: “Social Media Shows How Flexible Statistics Have Become!”

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old – That is right.
2. 96% of Millennials have joined a social network – In this context, it is wrong! The truth is slightly different: Trendspotting found in a surveys on the US young generation that 96% of online teens/tweens report ever having used any type of social networking technology including IM/chat, text messaging and email.
3. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S. – That is right. https://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html
4. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web – That is right since 2009. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/01/social-media-po.html
5. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media – I could not find the cited McKinsey study. Everyone on the web cites McKinsey but no one links to the source.
6. Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)… – I could not verify these numbers but the authors cite https://cyberschoolbus.un.org/
7. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year – That may be right, but only in the 6th year of facebook’s existence. If really compared to Radio, TV, Internet and iPod (point 6), it would be right to say: facebook (4 Years). Facebook reached 1 Million in 2004, 5.5 Million in 2005, 12 Million in 2006, 50 Million in 2007, 100 Million in 2008 and 350 Million in 2009. https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline
8. iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months. – 1 Billion what? Apples? However, one billion Downloads from the Appstore, to be honest. What is social about downloading an app for iPhone and iPod touch? https://www.apple.com/itunes/billion-app-countdown/
9. “We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.” – Another question is how well we DO statistics.
10. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India – That might be true, but obviously facebook isn’t a country. Would you compare your TV to a country? Or your Mobile Phone? Otherwise you could say: Mobile Phones are the world’s biggest country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
11. Yet, QQ and Renren dominate China – There is no trustworthy data on users. Every social network in China claims to be the largest: Qzone, RenRen, Kaixin001, and 51.com. The short and sweet is this: Qzone (388 million) has the most users, RenRen (120 Million) has the most active users, and Kaixin001 (75 Million) has the most highly active users. 51.com (160 Million) user’s are the most rural. https://social.venturebeat.com/2010/04/07/china%E2%80%99s-top-4-social-networks-renren-kaixin001-qzone-and-51-com/
12. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction – The picture isn’t black and white, it’s rather grey: Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se.
13. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn… 95% – The survey results showed that 80 percent of companies use or are planning to use social networking to find and attract candidates this year. LinkedIn use grew from 80 percent in 2008 to 95 percent of respondents https://recruiting.jobvite.com/news/press-releases/pr/jobvite-2009-social-recruitment-survey.php
14. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females – While the fastest growing age group by total users is still 26-34, the number of women over 55 on Facebook grew by an astounding 175.3% since the end of September. https://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/
15. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  populations of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. – This is true in a way but misleading in another. The rule here: Combine the first, but don’t combine the second. The author says: “Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined. Note it’s not the combined populations of the countries listed.” Does that mean: A and B together are bigger than C or D or E alone? But what is also said: Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have still less followers than the Irish, Norwegian and Panamanian population. Did I get it right?
16. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences? – Everywhere, anytime? Actually, mobile users spent 2.2bn minutes out of 4.8bn on facebook in December 2009. Given 5 million unique users, that makes 440 minutes per month. Less than 15 minutes per day. To me that sounds not like anytime, anywhere. https://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/feb/08/facebook-rise-mobile-web-use
17. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts – I could not verify this information, but it sounds understandable.
18. Instead they are distributing: eReaders + iPads + Tablets – The reference is entitled “Should colleges start giving Apple’s iPad to students?” So there is still a big question mark and a big “should they” rather than “they are”. I don’t see why ereaders are social media.
19. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook… – If you think so, why not?
20. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube – The author cites statistics of 2008, but this is still true in 2010. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/comscore-releases-january-2010-us-search-engine-rankings-2010-02-11
21. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube – That is right. 24 hours of video are uploaded on youtube every minute. https://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/oops-pow-surprise24-hours-of-video-all.html
22. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles…studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English – This seems to be true. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias. The accuracy issue depends on your Weltanschauung.
23. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1712.32 per hour – I could not reproduce this calculation.
24. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs – Maybe, is someone still counting?
25. Word of mouth now becomes world of mouth – Some call it Global Village.
    
26. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content – “According to MarketingVox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics, “More than 25 percent of search results on Google for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-gen- erated content.” https://www.searchenginestrategies.com/_pdfs/magazines/2009/sesmagazine-june2009.html
27. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands – https://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=351
28. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better. – As you like.
29. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them – Really? I don’t care.
30. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations – The author updated to 90% now. https://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/
31. Only 14% trust advertisements – This number should be hidden in Larry Weber’s book Marketing to the Social Web
32. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI – This one as well.
33. 90% of people skip ads via TiVo/DVR – This seems intelligent to me.
34. Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas – While not releasing any numbers, Amazon announced that more Kindle books were sold than real books through Amazon on Christmas day. https://mashable.com/2009/12/26/kindle-ebook-sales/
35. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation – Could not verify these numbers. The author cites the Solutions Research Group.
36. 60 millions status updates happen on Facebook daily – Seems to be right. https://www.allfacebook.com/2010/02/twitter-facebook-status/
37. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us. – This is pure ideology. Human beings locked in. Welcome to Web 2.0!
38. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media – This is pure ideology. Human beings locked in. Welcome to Web 2.0!
39. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. – I agree.
40. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men: Listening first, selling second. – And if everything would be true what is stated above, we would finally “know how to stop worrying and start living.”
41. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years – Otherwise you will go straight to hell… 😉
42. Bonus: comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network – Right! https://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/7/Russia_has_World_s_Most_Engaged_Social_Networking_Audience

Here is Erik Qualman’s book behind the video. To be read carefully! Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

www.socialnomics.net