Social media plays an essential part in our day-to-day lives. Most of us today are slowly becoming addicted to social media. People spend hours and hours each day browsing the different social media platforms throughout the day.

How many hours per day do people spend on social media?

According to Global Web Index (GWI), users of the Internet, on average, are now spending almost 2 hours and a half hours per day on their preferred social media channels.

GWI also states that many countries, which were showing increasing usage of social media, are now plateauing off. The stats report that in 11 out of the 31 countries which were analysed the social media usage is staying the same or declining. Possible reasons for this drop are that users are becoming increasingly aware of the detrimental effect that too much time in front of their smart devices or laptops has on them.

This being said, GWI reports that some countries show a notable rise in time spent on social media:

Currently, in the Philippines, the average internet user spends 11 minutes more per day – on social media –  than they did in 2017. Similarly, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have also shown a significant increase in time spent on social media.

How much time CAN you be spending on social media?

Although many people switching off their phones and tablets promptly at 5 pm every day in favour of family and friends face time or reading a book, there are some people who are making a good case for social media – albeit in a limited capacity.  It’s been suggested that keeping your social media use down to just 30 minutes a day can lead to better mental health outcomes. This is according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.

How much time should you be dedicating to social media marketing?

Social media marketing can be a total drain on resources if you don’t use it correctly. You can put in hours per day on this form of marketing, but if no one buys anything from you, then it’s all been a waste of time. So how do you know when enough’s enough?

It’s about what you post, not how often you post

If you post arbitrary nonsense ten times a day, your followers won’t care what you’re saying. The result is that they’ll switch off. If you take the opportunity to make something great, it’ll be worth it.

Think who your customers are

Post social media content that’s appropriate to your brand. If you put out irrelevant posts, that have nothing with what you do, you’ll confuse your customers as to what you do. This may have the result of causing them to turn away from you because they may feel that you’re confused about what you say that you do.

Guard your time!

Unfortunately, there’s no right or wrong right answer as to exactly how much time you should spend promoting your business via social media. It depends on several aspects:

• The type of business you run,
• The quality of posts you’re putting out, and
• What other marketing channels you’re using.

What the research says

The Social Media Examiner Industry Report 2017 asked 5 700 marketers how much time they invest in social media marketing. The findings showed a direct correlation in terms of how long marketers have been active on social media and their weekly time commitment to posting on social forums:

• 51% of beginner social media marketers spend an average of five or fewer hours per week on their preferred social channels.
• 61% of people who’ve had more that two years’ experience spend six hours or more.
• The size of your business and the capacity that its online activity consumes will also have impact of the amount of time necessary to ‘cover the grounds’.

Expert Advice

Experts in the media believe that social media endeavours should be divided into four portions. Depending on the time you consider committing to online marketing invest a quarter of your time into listening. It’s recommended that you begin each day with social listening. Is the world saying anything about? Are they saying anything about your competitors? What is the buzz about the marketplace that you play in?

Half the time should be invested in communication. This means that you need to spend time commenting on posts. Reply to people. A quarter of your time should be spent on creating new content.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Indeed, social media marketing is not an exact science. However,  there are tried-and-trusted principles that you can apply to make your social media presence stand out. The Digital School of Marketing’s Social Media Marketing Course will teach you this – in addition to everything else that you need to know – about social media marketing. To find out about this and our other online digital marketing courses, please visit our website.