How much time do you spend checking Facebook on your phone or tablet? Around 14 hours every month, if you’re anything like the average person.
As mobile becomes increasingly important in the social media landscape, Facebook once again proves that it is the undisputed king in both market share and engagement. This comes from a new report released by analytics firm Verto, which examined the current state of the digital content market. Some of its most notable insights include:
• There are 115 million active Facebook mobile app users in the U.S. alone. As mentioned earlier, these people spend an average of 14 hours on the app every month.
• Other social media apps are far behind. The closest contenders, WhatsApp and YouTube, still only get around 7.4 and 5 hours each month respectively.
• Even outside of social media, only Google has a higher mobile reach than Facebook, and it still falls short when it comes to engagement.
However, the report also discovered that reach and engagement don’t always go hand-in-hand. For instance, Facebook Messenger has a massive user base of 87 million, while WhatsApp messenger only has 10 million. The latter is far more successful at engaging its users, though, as people spend around 5 hours more per month on it. This is despite them serving the same general purpose.
Can any new mobile app or service ever replicate the runaway success of Facebook’s flagship app? It is difficult to say, and predicting future winners in social media has always been a formidable challenge. Marketers are better off by having a flexible social media strategy that can quickly adjust to new developments. But for now, there is no question which app is dominating the mobile world.
Pocholo Legaspi is a junior web content writer for TrueLogic Online Solutions. He has been interested in digital marketing for years, and is eager to see how the industry will grow and change as time goes on. Outside of work, he also happens to be a pianist, poi dancer, and personal finance nerd.
