The bar chart compares three types of businesses – small, medium and large – in terms of the proportion of their social media presence over a five-year period between 2012 and 2016.
Overall, large and medium-sized firms consistently showed higher levels of online activity, while smaller businesses experienced the most noticeable changes over the period.
Looking at the larger companies, initially, around 78% of large enterprises were active online, which experienced a dramatic fall to 53% in 2015. After a notable rise from 31% to 49% between the initial 3 years, medium-sized companies followed a similar downward trend, constituting 30% in the same year. However, both business types reached their peak by the end of the period, with the former reaching 80% and the latter rising from one-third to more than half.
Turning to smaller organizations, only about 27% had an online presence in 2012, the lowest figure among all business sizes. Similar to the remaining types, smaller businesses had a drop in the proportion of social media presence (30%) in 2015. However, this figure increased dramatically and rapidly, accounting for nearly 50% by 2016.