Social Media Update 2013

Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms. Some 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites. These are among the key findings on social networking site usage and adoption from a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. Facebook remains the leader by a wide margin with 71% saying they use the site, up from 67% in 2012. Use of all the sites was up year to year, though some within the margin of error. LinkedIn was the second most popular at 22%, up from 20% in 2012; followed by Pinterest at 21%, up from 15%; Twitter at 18%, up from 16%; and Instagram at 17%, up from 13%. Additionally, Pew found that 76 percent of online US adult females use Facebook, compared to 66 percent for online males, while fairly similar women/men percentage splits exist for Twitter (18 percent/17 percent), Instagram (20/17) and Pinterest (33/8). Indeed, one-third of women are now using Pinterest. But then there's LinkedIn: the researcher said 24 percent of Internet-using men employ the site compared to 19 percent of women. [Dec 30]