social media statistics

Facebook: from the bedroom of an Ivy League colleague to a Silicon Valley powerhouse. It's an all-American startup dream, but one that the Brits have taken to heart and then some.

This new infographic from BLiNQ Media, who have recently opened an office in London, shows Facebook penetration in the UK (49%) leads the US (48%). OK, so obsessed might be going a bit far, but safe to say, we're fans despite any privacy concerns.

Whilst luxury brand tops the chart in the UK, it's Starbucks in the US, the other 4 top brands are all confectioners: Skittles, Cadbury Creme Egg, Cadbury Wispa and Maltesers.

The debate about the best way for brands to engage, use and market with Facebook is raging as the social networks 700m strong userbase firmly places it on every marketer's radar. In this controversial guest blog by Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel, he investigates the numbers, the reality and gives brands 3 simple rules.

All this summer we have been looking at the effectiveness of Facebook for a variety of big brand customers. Here is what we have discovered, and for Facebook it doesn’t make pretty reading.

Digesting numbers is a lot easier when they're in pretty picture format, and for a visual download of the latest Twitter stats, this is a handy infographic from the folks at Touch Agency in Lancashire, they've pulled together "over 35 different statistics - it contains everything you need to know about (twitter)"

Here at Chinwag, we like a tasty infographic and this one is a doozy. Built from data collected around the time of the national census, our friend Simon Sanders from Lansons recently published it on their blog.

That's equivalent to the UK's entire working population (~29.3m in 2009 - is this rising/falling - discuss) using social media with a few more people to spare.