Social Media Behaviour Findings from GlobalWebIndex

GlobalWebIndex has released its report on social media trends for 2018. Find GDI’s coverage of the social media ‘Landscape’ findings here.

The second section considers the behaviour and motivations of consumers on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

40% use social media to stay up to date with news and current events, and 40% also use it for keeping in touch with friends and family.

19% use social channels for following celebrities, while 33% use them for networking with other people in a social context.

Within the 16-24 age bracket, 46% say they use social media to find funny or entertaining content. 46% also say they use it to fill up free time.

The authors write: “With Generation Z and millennials showing less interest in other people’s updates, and the growing desire to extricate themselves from the social aspects of social media, social media as an entertaining hub could potentially outlast social media as a medium for human connection.”

48% of users are defined as ‘Brand Interactors’ – people who have liked a brand, shared its content, clicked on a brand’s sponsored post or interacted in some other way.

45% are ‘Professional Networkers’. They use social media to follow professional connections and businesspeople, or to find new business opportunities.

There are noticeable cultural differences in social media use – 59% in the Philippines use social channels to find news, while only 17% of South Korean consumers do the same.

20% of Thai consumers use social media to research a product before buying, while this is true of only 3% of German internet users.

Read more here.