By: Mandi Andrejka and Tanya Hyatt
With so many social media platforms popping up, there’s a lot of information out there when it comes to determining which platforms edtech companies should leverage to reach their prime audience. From 2017 to 2018, 320 influencer-marketing-focused platforms and agencies launched, bringing us to a whopping 740 as of the end of last year.
We don’t know about you, but that’s a lot for us to take in. Even as we drafted this blog we found ourselves headed down the rabbit hole of social media statistic overload! Let’s narrow things down a bit.
As far as the edtech market goes, there are four platforms that are most effective at reaching teachers (as influencers) and other education decision-makers: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Now that we’ve cleared away roughly 736 other options, let’s take a look at some number that make these four platforms the strongest options when it comes to leveraging teacher influencers in your edtech marketing campaigns.
As of March 2019, more than 2.38 billion people around the world log in to Facebook monthly, with about 1.6 billion logging in daily. On average, U.S. users browse Facebook for nearly an hour each day with that time broken up into increments of about 10–12 minutes per visit. There’s varying information about whether Facebook or Instagram is the top social media platform when it comes to marketing, but according to a 2018 survey by CPC Strategy, nearly 70% of consumers stated that they are most likely to receive information about new products, services, or events from people they follow on Facebook.
In 2018 Facebook was surpassed by YouTube as the second most-visited website around the world, but that still puts it in the #3 position overall and the most-visited social media site.
There are about 321 million monthly active Twitter users around the world, and 126 million daily users. These number that may seem rather underwhelming compared to other platforms, but it’s worth noting that this count includes only users who can view advertisements, while, as of now, other platforms are still counting users whose third-party apps block ads. What also sets Twitter apart from other platforms is that there are nearly four times as many international users as there are American users—so that’s a huge bonus if you’re an edtech company that does work beyond the U.S.!
While research shows that more people get to news story links from Facebook than Twitter, mobile users from Twitter tend to spend more time on the stories and pages they’re directed to from Twitter than do mobile users from Facebook. According to research conducted by Twitter, users are 31% more likely to remember something they saw on Twitter than something they saw in general online browsing.
Instagram is one of the—if not the—fastest-growing social media platforms. As of 2018, Instagram hosts more than 1 billion monthly active users (500 million daily active users), with many expecting the platform to reach 2 billion users in the near future. On average, Instagram users tend to spend nearly a full hour on the app per day. Combine these numbers with the platform’s ease of content creation, and this leads many to consider Instagram to be the most effective social media platform. In fact, 78% of marketers choose Instagram as their top influencer marketing platform.
Instagram has become a dominant force when it comes to influencer marketing. Instagram posts, Instagram Stories, and Instagram videos take the respective first, second, and fourth spots as far as the most popular content format for influencer marketing goes, with only YouTube videos breaking up the list with its #3 slot.
The Numbers: As of 2018, there are 250 million monthly active users worldwide on Pinterest (with little-to-no data available for their daily user count). What makes Pinterest different than the other platforms is the reasons its users come to it. According to a survey of Pinterest users, 96% stated they use Pinterest to research and gather information, and another 87% claimed their interactions on Pinterest have helped them decide what to purchase. Even more interesting is that Pinterest users are twice as likely than user of other platforms to say their time on Pinterest is well-spent.
How to Get a Teacher’s Attention
Based on this data alone, it’s clear that having and maintaining a social media presence is important for all businesses. It’s a powerful way to build brand awareness and engage with your prospective and current customers.
However, if those customers are teachers, you may need to adjust the types of content you’re posting as part of your day-to-day social media strategy to reach teachers. As we explored in a previous post, teachers are looking for specific information—including brands to follow that provide what they are looking for—when they use social media for work.
In order to help get the creative wheels spinning about how your company can communicate with teachers on social media, we’ve put together an infographic that highlights twelve different content types that teachers may be looking for.
Thanks for sharing!