The company previously known as App Annie and now called data.ai, recently published an annual overview of app performance trends from 2022. The report highlighted areas where there were shifts of development so we can understand which part we can focus on.
A key area that was flagged in the report was the time spent on social media. Throughout the 91 pages, there are insights across various app sectors, but today we shall focus on social media usage.
data.ai does pick out the rise of BeReal seeing a huge jump in users wanting a more authentic and simple social media experience. The report says “BeReal broke out as a popular social sensation in 2022, appealing to users by selling a more authentic, less curated, experience. In fact, no social app has added more new users in the US in any of the past five years than BeReal’s 5.3 million in August 2022.”
The Crown Goes to…
As we can see from the image above, Meta holds the most usage in terms of what app is clicked on the most. TikTok was also a top performer in most markets. According to data.ai, BeReal now has difficulty diversifying and building on that attention as while prompting users to share a picture once a day, there is not much engagement on the app, nor is there the incentive of monetisation. Many other apps such as YouTube and Twitter will be testing monetisation, especially for creators, and therefore where BeReal is falling behind the pack.
Another Talking Point is…
TikTok is another key point to discuss when looking at the data.ai report. TikTok generated the most in-app revenue compared to any other social media app in 2022. When looking at what people were purchasing in each app, TikTok sold its in-app Coins allowing users to donate money to creators and influencers or buy items in-stream.
By buying Coins in the app and gifting them to your favourite creators or influencers, you’re allowing them to continue to create with an incentive. It’s a great way of showing your appreciation and giving creators a platform to be able to grow by doing what they love. Although live-stream shopping is yet as popular as it is in China, TikTok would be researching this more to see how they can make it work in the future.
Japan and China
The US has now passed Japan and China to become one of the top markets for consumer spending in social media apps while smaller markets are seeing growth in in-app spending. “Marketing outside of the big three (the US, China, and Japan) only combined for 30 percent of consumer spending in 2029. This climbed to nearly 40 percent in 2022 while global spending more than tripled over this period.”
Global Time Spent in Social Apps
The last date to highlight within the report is the global time spent in social apps surpassing 2 trillion hours in 2022. The time spent rose 17% year-over-year passing 2 trillion hours on Android mobile phones this year. It is clear to see that social apps continue to dominate the digital world with mobile video increasingly taking up user time. This is also a key trend for marketers looking to maximise attention and reach on their product or service.
It is beneficial to look through the report and see for yourself which part needs to be highlighted for you. De-coding trends and numbers will help to see what works and what helps when developing future objectives.
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