5 Comms Lessons from Pew Research on Social Media Usage

The Pew Research Center is a gift to data junkies…they provide high-quality, longitudinal data that is free from bias (i.e., many companies put our data that can be used to justify a purchase of their services). Their work on journalism and religion is excellent, too. They are as good a chronicler of American life as you will find.

Their 2021 Social Media report is out. It contains insights in every paragraph and I’d commend it to you for your late-night reading stack.

I wanted to share five things I found that can guide a modern comms practice that is trying to build a strong stakeholder ecosystem and therefore be more Resilient, as in my Resilient5 program.

One overriding point: you will not be relevant to a critical mass of people under 65 without being effective—not just active—on social media.

We see (again) the growing dominance of video

Every part of comms is being taken over by video. The confluence of accessible production techniques and consumer desire have made this inevitable. YouTube is the most used social platform and it isn’t close. More than four in five people (81%) use YouTube as opposed to 69% using Facebook. This insight should drive a lot of decisions including:

• More videos throughout your comms operation

• Advertising on YouTube

• Remembering YouTube as a search engine

• Being aware that just because tools are accessible doesn’t mean production can be careless

• Training an entire staff on how to produce effective videos

Social Media Use has flat-lined….at pervasive

Like it or not, social media is what broadcast TV networks were in the pre-Cable era…a ubiquitous presence in people’s lives. To get their attention, you need to be in social media and not as an after-thought. I’m sure you have already discerned that. I put this fact in case anyone in your office says things like “social media usage is levelling off.”

You Will Need to Go Elsewhere to Include Older Citizens

Having said that, there’s one group that isn’t totally absorbed in social media and (as you can see) that’s seniors. Not totally absorbed….but 50% absorbed, which is still pretty good penetration. Nonethless, if seniors (especially on the older end of the range) are key to your strategy (ie, an election, certain products and healthcare products…you can’t afford to be strictly digital or social.

Apropos of nothing, only 7% of Americans say they aren’t online. You can read more about them here…also from Pew. Twenty years ago it was 48%.

Just Like News Media, Social Media is 7 days a week

Most people told Pew that they are on social media every day.. So if someone is telling you that people are weaning off (most likely, something like “my wife’s cousin said she is done with Facebook”). Data-wise, it might be falling off but not meaningfully. It’s still a daily presence in the audience’s lives. In fact, the best times for our messages to resonate might well be evenings and weekends. Also, the data reminds us of the non-stop attention social listening will require. It’s never off.

You Will Not Need to Go Elsewhere to include Minorities

I think this would be a surprise to most people, but the data shows that Blacks and Hispanics both use YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp and TikTok more than Whites. You don’t need to supplement your social media to account for minorities. You do need to ensure your imagery and messaging reflects the same diversity as you’ve put into your TV ads.