With Pinterest expanding its features for businesses, Instagram launching a Web version and Facebook continually expanding its advertising options, now is as good a time as ever to bolster your social media presence for the future.
Before doing so, it's important to understand the data behind each social channel to gain insights into what works and what doesn't with your audience. Here are 100 of the most fascinating social media statistics and figures from 2012 that can help you better understand Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google Plus for the coming year.
Facebook Statistics
1. Barack Obama's victory Facebook post was the most liked photo on Facebook with over 4 million likes. (source: The Huffington Post)
2. 25 percent of users on Facebook don't bother with any kind of privacy control. (source: AllTwitter)
3. An average Facebook users has 130 friends. (source: AllTwitter)
4. Monthly active users now total nearly 850 million. (source: Jeff Bullas)
5. 21 percent of Facebook users are from Asia, which is only less than 4 percent of Asia's population. (source: Uberly)
6. 488 million users regularly use Facebook mobile. (source: All Facebook)
7. Brazil publishes the most number of posts out of all Facebook countries. More than 800 Pages kept their Facebook walls busy with almost 86 thousand posts per month. (source: Socialbakers)
8. 23 percent of Facebook's users check their account 5 or more times daily. (source: Socialnomics)
9. Facebook hosts 42 million "Pages" with 10 or more likes. (source: Jeff Bullas)
10. More than 1 million websites have integrated with Facebook in various ways. (source: Uberly)
11. 85 percent of women are annoyed by their friends on Facebook. (source: AllTwitter)
12. Facebook has seen a 41 percent growth in active users from Russia, South Korea, Japan, India and Brazil during 2012. (source: DreamGrow)
13. 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. (source: Jeff Bullas)
14. As of 2012, 210,000 years of music have been played on Facebook. (source: Gizmodo)
15. Links about sex are shared 90 percent more than any other link. (source: AllTwitter)
16. As of 2012, 17 billion location-tagged posts and check-ins were logged. (source: Gizmodo)
17. 80 percent of social media users prefer to connect with brands through Facebook. (source: Business2Community)
18. 43 percent of Facebook users are male, while 57 percent of Facebook users are female. (source: Uberly)
19. As of April, Zygna's games revenue was 12 percent of Facebook's total income. (source: Jeff Bullas)
20. A whopping 77 percent of B2C companies and 43 percent of B2B companies acquired customers from Facebook. (source: Business2Community)
Twitter Statistics
21. There are 175 million tweets sent from Twitter every day in 2012. (source: Infographics Labs)
22. The average Twitter user has tweeted 307 times. (source: Diego Basch's Blog)
23. Since the dawn of Twitter, there's been a total of 163 billion tweets. (source: Diego Basch's Blog)
24. 56 percent of customer tweets to companies are being ignored. (sources: AllTwitter)
25. Barack Obama's victory tweet was the most retweeted tweet ever with over 800K retweets. (source: The Guardian)
26. Top 3 countries on Twitter are the USA at 107 million, Brazil 33 million and Japan at nearly 30 million. (source: Jeff Bullas)
27. The average user follows (or is followed by) 51 people. (source: Diego Basch's Blog)
28. The 2012 election broke records with 31.7 million political tweets. Election Day was by far the most tweeted about event in US political history. (source: Marketing Land)
29. 32 percent of all Internet users are using Twitter. (source: Marketing Land)
30. Twitter is projected to make a total of $540 million in advertising revenue by 2014. (source: Web Analytics World)
31. 69 percent of follows on Twitter are suggested by friends. (source: Web Analytics World)
32. In 2012, 1 million accounts are added to Twitter everyday. (source: Infographics Labs)
33. Lady Gaga has 31 million followers, which is the most followed account on Twitter. (source: Socialbakers)
34. The most followed brand on Twitter is YouTube with 19 million followers. (source: All Twitter)
35. The USA's 141.8 million accounts represents 27.4 percent of all Twitter users. (source: All Twitter)
36. The "Castle in the Sky" TV screening was the busiest time on Twitter ever with 25,088 tweets per second. (source: Sys-Con)
37. 11 accounts are created every second on Twitter. (source: Infographics Labs)
38. 50 percent of Twitter users are using the social network via mobile. (source: Microsoft tag)
39. 34 percent of marketers have generated leads using Twitter. (source: Digital Buzz Blog)
40. 26 percent of retweets are incited by a request to retweet. (source: Web Analytics World)
Instagram Statistics
41. There are 575 likes and 81 comments by Instagram users every second. (source: Digital Buzz Blog)
42. Users uploaded more than 800,000 photos of Hurricane Sandy using the hashtag #Sandy. (source: Information Week)
43. In August 2012, Instagram hit 80 million users and counting. (source: Visual.ly)
44. In August 2012, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users. (source: All Things D)
45. The average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing. (source: All Things D)
46. More than 5 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day. (source: Business Insider)
47. Nearly 4 billion photos have been shared on Instagram since its beginning. (source: The Realtime Report)
48. 40 percent of brands have adopted Instagram for marketing. (source: Marketing Land)
49. Of the top brands, 20 percent surveyed had 10,000 or more followers. (source: Marketing Land)
50. In a six-month span, Instagram's average daily mobile visitors jumped from 886,000 to 7.3 million, which is a 724 percent leap. (source: Marketing Land)
51. This year alone, Instagram users liked 78 million photos. (source: Digital Buzz Blog)
52. Instagram has 432,000 more daily users than Twitter in August 2012. (source: All Twitter)
53. Users on Instagram spend 257 minutes using the app, as opposed to the 169.9 minutes spent on Twitter in August 2012. (source: All Twitter)
54. The Android version received over 430,000 pre-registrations. (source: See My City)
55. Instagram had 1 million downloads in a day when the Android app launched. (source: Visual.ly)
56. Instagram was one of the largest acquisition of a venture capital-backed consumer Web company since Zappos was bought by Amazon for $1.22B in 2009. (source: Factbrowser)
57. It took just 10 months for Instagram to reach the milestone of 150m pictures uploaded. (source: Siliconrepublic)
58. According to Followgram's research, 37 percent of Instagram users have never uploaded a single photo and only 5 percent of users have more than 50 pictures. (source: Siliconrepublic)
59. The top 5 of the top 100 hash tags on Instagram are #love, #instagood, #me, #tbt and #cute. (source: Statigram)
60. Facebook's billion dollar valuation of Instagram makes the less-than-two-year-old startup more valuable than 161-year-old The New York Times Company. The New York Times Company was valued at 946 million dollars based on yesterday's closing price at the NYSE. (source: NDTV Gadgets)
Pinterest Statistics
61. 97 percent of the fans of Pinterest's Facebook page are women. (source: AllTwitter)
62. Over 80 percent of pins are repins. (source: AllTwitter)
63. 80 percent of Pinterest users are women, while 50 percent of all Pinterest users have children. (source: Search Engine Journal)
64. American users of Pinterest spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on the site. (source: Search Engine Journal)
65. Pinterest referrals spend 70 percent more money than visitors referred from non-social channels. (source: Search Engine Journal)
66. 28.1 percent of Pinterest users have an annual household income of $100,000. (source: Ultralinx)
67. Total unique visitors to Pinterest increased by 2,702.2 percent since May 2011. (source: Ultralinx)
68. Users spend an average of 16 minutes on Pinterest a visit. (source: AllTwitter)
69. The average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. (source: Arik Hanson)
70. Pinterest pins with prices get 36 percent more likes than those without. (source: Shopify)
71. Pinterest hit 10 million U.S. monthly unique visitors faster than any independent site in history. (source: Sirona Consulting)
72. 83.9 percent of a pinners time is spent Pinning, while 15.5 percent is spent liking and 0.6 percent is spent leaving comments. (source: Repinly)
73. Out of 17 million brand engagements, 15 percent occurred on the brand's boards and 85 percent occurred elsewhere on Pinterest. (source: Curalate)
74. 69 percent of online consumers who visit Pinterest have found an item they've bought or wanted to buy, compared with 40 percent of Facebook users. (source: All Facebook)
75. Over 1/5 of Facebook-connected users are on Pinterest daily, which represents more than 2 million members. (source: AppData)
76. The most popular age group on Pinterest is 25 - 34 year olds. (source: AllTwitter)
77. 43 percent of people prefer Pinterest to associate with retailers or brands; 24 percent chose Facebook. (source: All Facebook)
78. 9 percent of people have participated in contests or promotions via Pinterest, as opposed to the 30 percent that have on Facebook. (source: All Facebook)
79. 25 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies have Pinterest accounts. (source: Burson-Marsteller)
80. 57 percent of Pinterest users interact with food-related content, the #1 category of content. (source: Compete)
Google+ Statistics
81. The Google +1 button is used 5 billion times per day. (source: AllTwitter)
82. 48 percent of fortune global 100 companies are now on Google+. (source: Burson-Marsteller)
83. Google+ pages appear in search results for 30 percent of brand term searches for brands with G+ pages, up from 5 percent in February 2012. (source: Bright Edge)
84. Only 8 percent of Americans 12+ have a Google+ profile page. (source: Edison Research)
85. The automotive industry has 2.7MM circlers on Google+, compared to 1.9MM for electronics, and 1.3MM for luxury goods. (source: Simply Measured)
86. Total circlers of brand pages on Google+ increased by 138 percent between February and May 2012. (source: Simply Measured)
87. H&M has the most Google+ posts of any brand, with 740, compared to 571 for Google, 515 for Ferrari, and 460 for MTV. (source: Simply Measured)
88. 47 percent of Hispanic consumers use Google+, compared to the U.S. average of 18 percent. (source: USAMP)
89. 625,000 new users on Google+ every day. (source: AllTwitter)
90. 40 percent of marketers use Google+, 70 percent want to learn more about it and 67 percent plan on increasing Google+ activities. (source: Social Media Examiner)
91. 42 percent of worldwide Google+ users are single; 27 percent are married. (source: Website-Monitoring)
92. 68 percent of Google+ users are Male, while 32 percent of Google+ users are female. (source: Mashable)
93. Google+ active users spend over 60 minutes a day across Google products (source: Jeff Bullas)
94. Google+ users spend on average 12 minutes per day in the Google+. (source: Jeff Bullas)
95. Websites using the +1 button generate 3.5x the Google+ visits than sites without the button. (source: HubSpot)
96. At least 60 percent of Google+ users log in daily. (source: tecmark)
97. At least 80 percent of Google+ users engage on a weekly basis. (source: Chris Brogan)
98. Google+ cost $585 million and took 500 employees to build. (source: Social Media Delivered)
99. 30 percent of users who make a public post never make a second one. (source: Jeff Bullas)
100. Google+ is expected to attract 400 million users by the end of 2012. (source: Remcolandia)