Social Media Network stats for 2012

Wherever and whenever there is data, beware of the 'smoke and mirrors'. By this I mean data is often isolated to tell a particular (and convincing) pre-defined story. Social Media Networks
can have enormously varied audiences, functions and therefore user behaviour stats. A universal metric (think follow on Twitter or like on Facebook) can have a hugely varied value and meaning depending on the network.

That said, in a world where a new social media network is pretty much launched on a daily basis, and where the big boys like Facebook are ever changing things to monitise the service and further increase market share; it's interesting and useful to look at some top level user stats.

The infographic below created by Pardot is a useful snapshot of the most popular Social Networks in the Western World. These include; Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google +.

Pardot have collated Nielsen data to show each networks growth, monthly visitors, and estimated ROI. These factors have then been converted into a grade and presented like a 'report card'.

Source: Uploaded by user via Si on Pinterest