This statistic presents the social network penetration in Canada. As of the third quarter of 2017, the most popular social network was YouTube, with a 74 percent penetration rate.
Social media usage - additional information
Apart from the most common role of social media – socializing and entertainment, owing to their wide-spread penetration, social networks are commonly and frequently used for marketing purposes. In fact, marketers worldwide agree that increased exposure is the leading benefit of using social media for marketing purposes. According to 65 percent of professionals in the field, social networks have the power to generate leads and 51 percent believe they help improve sales. It comes as no surprise then, that industry professionals are constantly increasing the amount of time spent on social media marketing with each consecutive year. As far as the Canadian market is concerned, marketers in the country recognize that social platforms help target specific audiences and at the same time allow accessing a broader client base. All of it translates to growing advertising expenditures on social media which are expected to reach nearly 835 million Canadian dollars by the end of 2017.
In terms of personal use the data indicates that social network user number is on the rise and it is projected to maintain this growth– in 2018 there will be 20.4 million social media users in Canada. It was found in early 2016, that consumers in Canada spent 18 percent of their social media time on interacting with companies or brands, while the remaining time was devoted to friends or acquaintances. At the same time, women spent slightly less time on communicating with brands than men. Among the general population, the majority of time spent accessing different social platforms was via smartphones, with desktop and tablets to follow. All in all, social media's influence on purchasing decisions, among young Canadians especially, is not to be ignored. September 2016 survey results show that both positive and negative customer review posts have the power to sway their decision one way or another.
