100 Fascinating Social Media Statistics and Figures From 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-honigman/100-fascinating-social-me_b_2185281.html 

I came across this article on the Huffington Post which summarizes the 100 most fascinating social media statistics from 2012, and thought I'd share a few that I thought were noteworthy in my opinion:

1. Barack Obama's victory Facebook page was the most liked photo on Facebook with over 4 million likes.
2. Monthly active Facebook users now total nearly 850 million
3. Brazil publishes the most number of posts out of all Facebook countries.
4. 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day.
5. There are 175 million tweets sent from Twitter every day.
6. Barack Obama's victory tweet was the most retweeted ever with over 800K retweets.
7. Top 3 countries on Twitter are: USA, Brazil, and Japan
8. There are 575 likes and 81 comments on by Instagram users every second.
9. In August 2012, Instagram hit 80 million users and counting.
10. The Google +1 button is used 5 billion times per day.

While some of these are not news to anyone, I'm always intrigued by how powerful social media has been in politics partly because I studied political science in college, spent most of my life in Washington, DC, and it has been a part of my life for a long time. This new media is powerful for politicians, who historically were forced to use more traditional forms like newspapers, television, and town hall meetings to get their message out there. And now, with Internet availability and mobile usage rising, it can be argued that politicians are expanding their reach and tapping new audiences. 

What's even more interesting is how receptive people are at consuming and spreading political-related news and information through their own social media accounts. I guess for me, I prefer to keep my political views and opinions to myself and my close friends and family. Others, it seems, like to share it with everybody...and sometimes like to share it a little too often. My guess though that now that the U.S. election is over, political-related updates will subside as the news and coverage declines.