Here’s the evidence in fact form…

By Robert Wheatley

The media environment your brand competes in is changing rapidly. Are you ready?

Social media is perplexing to many organizations trying to find their way in correctly, effectively. It helps when you have a passion for it and strong reasons to make the leap and invest. So it stands to reason that laddering up the rationale for making social media strategy a part of your communications effort is a good starting point.

So why should you get really motivated to move in this new direction? Read on.

The following list was developed from a wonderful Slideshare presentation created by Boston and Toronto-based Espresso.

• 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology.

• Twitter’s monthly user growth rate in January to February of this year was 1,382 percent.

• Average number of Tweets per day: 3 million

• Two-thirds of Global Internet users visit social networks.

• Visiting social sites is now the fourth most popular online activity — ahead of email.

• Time spent on social networks is growing at 3X times the rate of overall Internet use.

• 13 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

• 100 million YouTube videos are viewed each day.

• 3.6 billion photos are now archived at Flickr.

• 5 billion – the number of minutes spent daily on Facebook.

• 1 billion – the number of content files shared each week on Facebook.

• 93 percent of social media users believe companies should have a presence in social media.

• 85 percent of social media users believe companies should interact with their customers at social sites.

Hope that makes the case. What to do next? That’s where expert help and guidance comes into play.

What do you think?