According to an infographic prepared by business software vendor Sage, 81% of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) believe that social media is a valuable business tool. It is used by 57% of these businesses to support their marketing efforts, with Facebook topping the list of most popular social networks.
Facebook is used for business purposes by 19% of SMEs, LinkedIn ranks second with 14% and Twitter is number three with 4%. A quarter of UK SMEs spend between six and ten hours weekly on their social media endeavours. However, 14% have yet to start separating their personal from their professional profiles.
As for the reasons driving SMEs to social media, 27% use it to boost brand awareness, while 15% do so in the hope of driving up sales. For 11%, the aim is to achieve an improvement in their customer service.
Sage has included a breakdown of user demographics on the three most popular social networks, providing SMEs with an insight into their audience. In the case of Facebook, 57% of users are female and 43% are male, while the audience is split equally gender-wise on LinkedIn. Twitter’s user base has a 59% to 41% ratio of women to men. In terms of age, 19% of Twitter users are aged up to 24, while the respective figures for Facebook and LinkedIn are 14% and 4%. The 25 to 34 age group represents 23% of Twitter users, 18% of those on Facebook and 15% on LinkedIn. Those aged 35 to 44 represent 32% of user accounts on LinkedIn, and 25% and 22% on Twitter and Facebook respectively. LinkedIn is also popular in the 45+ group, who represent a 49% share of its audience. This age group accounts for 46% of Facebook users and 33% of those on Twitter.
