We have talked at length about how the past year has accelerated the relationship between individuals and the web, but now the We Are Social Digital 2021 survey offers a more detailed insight into what the web trends have been in the past months.
The report, the son of the year we lived, presents the following key data:
1) 4.66 billion people had access to the Internet, which brings the percentage of Internet penetration in the world to 59%.
2) 4.20 billion individuals, more than half of the world population, have used social media. Youtube and Facebook dominate the ranking of the most used social networks this year too. Tik Tok, Pinterest and Telegram are growing exponentially.
3) The e-commerce sector is the winner of the year: again, due to the pandemic, we were forced to change our habits. A large amount of money has been spent on online shopping and not only among young people, but this modality has reached all age groups.
The Italian situation is in line with the world trend:
• 50 million (out of a population of 60.41 million people) of users are online. The increase in new active users on the web is + 2.2% compared to last year, for a total of 1 million new users.
• Internet penetration in Italy thus reaches 83.7%
• Active users in social media are 41 million in our country. If the Italian population is decreasing, the digitization of individuals has seen an increase of + 6%.
People "consume" content, especially video (93%), but increasingly also audio with 61% listening to music in streaming and 25% enjoying podcasts. They play online, with different types of devices, as 81% of Italians say. Digital 2021 then highlights an evolution in the ways in which people search for information online, including on brands. Alongside the use of traditional search engines, today there are 37% of Italians using voice search technologies and 33% using social media channels.
The big news of this report is the exponential growth of Telegram and Tik Tok.
The first because it pays a lot of attention to the protection of privacy, an area in which individuals have become very aware during 2020. The second has doubled active users (also increasing the age ranges of use); moreover, from a social platform for play purposes it has been transformed into a content platform thanks to the relationship with the creators. More and more brands are now entering the tool through the help of valuable content.
2020 also succeeded in some miracles, it allowed people and communities to acquire a new awareness in the use of social media and allowed the latter to carve out a new role: to be able to intervene in society actively and concretely. As a result, our relationship with these channels (from how we use them to how we feel about them) has undergone an irreversible transformation.
During 2020, the daily lives of all of us have been disrupted like never and humanity has been forced on a global level to face the cracks formed in the established order and to reassess priorities with a view to an uncertain future. From the pandemic to the environmental crisis and from the riots for rights to political crises.
With the lockdown shaping much of our experience (at its peak, the first wave of Covid-19 in April saw over 3.9 billion people confined to their homes) the role of digital tools and communications has taken on a centrality even more marked.
In some cases, inertia has been overcome thanks to live content, shopping through augmented reality and the ability to customize a paid avatar, behaviors that have become increasingly common.
As we approach 2021, people will re-evaluate the role that various platforms play in their lives, reconsider the sources to interact with, and will again learn how to use social media in line with the general changes that underlie our time.
To find out all the news and benefits that can be gained from social media for your business, contact E-Business Consulting, a digital marketing agency active since 2003 and integrated into the Social Media world.
