Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

Take a look around you. How many people do you see fiddling with their phones?

The rapid spread of cell phones has completely changed the way we consume media. In the United States alone, there are nearly 325 million mobile phone subscriptions. To put that into perspective, the total population in 2013 was 316 million!

It’s safe to assume that nearly everyone has a phone now, and nearly all those users are on social media – the websites or applications that allow people to connect with each other and network.

Market research by eMarketer has found that people spend nearly half their phone time on social media. In fact, 71 percent of Americans are on Facebook, and there are more than half a billion Twitter users worldwide.

Social media has changed our consumption habits. It directly influences the way we spend our money: One in four people use social media sites to help them decide what they want to buy. They find out about a product through a viral Twitter campaign, or their friend’s Facebook post.

And social media isn’t just for the young – Baby Boomers recently increased their social media consumption by 42 percent in just one year. This fact is especially important to advertisers, because Baby Boomers account for 70 percent of US spending.

It’s normal for new media outlets to overtake old ones – once upon a time radio overtook print, and TV replaced radio in turn. But social media’s takeover has been significantly faster. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people, and TV 13. Instagram? Only a year and half.

Clearly, marketers need to understand how to utilize these powerful new tools. Social media is simply vital in our modern age.