Here are the figures from the "Digital 2020 Report": how to exploit them?
At the beginning of 2020, the annual “Digital 2020 Report” was published, which analyses the world’s public and its relationship with the digital world. Obviously, Italy was also included in the study and some particularly interesting data came out. But before we start analysing the statistics, we need to ask ourselves how important this type of analysis is. Being aware of the habits of Italians, and more generally of the world public, is fundamental to be able to make the most of one’s social media and keep up with the latest developments in the digital world.
Italy confirms itself as a mature, connected, social country, with a growing trend of adoption as regards the Internet in the broad sense, social platforms and new technologies. In fact, almost 50 million people are online in Italy on a regular basis, and 35 million are present and active on social channels.
The time spent online is also growing proportionally: there are 6 hours on average spent connected to the internet every day, and of these, 1 hour and 57 minutes on social, an increase compared to the figure recorded in 2019. It is certainly not news that smartphone use has reached (almost) saturation levels: 98% of social users connect from mobile devices. Immediately related to this, is the increase in audience engagement, who participate much more actively in online discussions.
Fortunately, despite the amount of dialogue online and the saturation of news, the data shows a broad awareness of the issue of fake news and misinformation: more than one in two people expressed concern about the issue of fake news (52%) and the treatment of personal data (59%) by platforms and companies.
It is not only the desire to stay connected with friends, colleagues, favourite brands and sources of inspiration that drives the use of social media, but also a very clear search for recreation and entertainment. Watching online videos, following vlogs, listening to music, online radio and podcasts are all activities that combine entertainment with a desire for personal growth. Confirmation of this desire is also to be found in the top 10 categories of apps most used by Italians: 5 of the top 7 categories are in fact attributable to the sphere of social and entertainment.
In terms of social media, Italians’ favourite platforms remain YouTube and the Facebook family of apps (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, in that order) firmly in the top 5. And it is Instagram that is the platform with the most evident growth, from 55% to 64%. It is, of course, impossible to ignore the birth and development of the social TikTok: at the first survey in Italy we see an adoption already at 11%, which is, of course, an indicator of an even wider penetration on the demographic mainly present on the platform, that of the so-called “Gen Z”.
There are also positive signs on the e-commerce front: the indicators for online pre-purchase searches (from 86% to 87%) and the actual purchase of products from any device (from 75% to 77%) increased by 1-2 percentage points compared to 2019.
In conclusion, the digital world is constantly growing and changing. The ability of companies and anyone who needs to work through the web is to be able to analyse and exploit this data to their advantage, constantly updating themselves and not being afraid to adopt new marketing strategies. Using different communication channels, interacting with your audience and being one of the first to arrive on new platforms is the best way to keep up with the times. For this reason, Mediability offers social management and monitoring services to its clients: turn to us to ride the wave of the web!