The bar chart shows the percentage of small, medium and large businesses that used social media for communication between 2012 and 2016.
Overall, large companies consistently had the highest level of social-media usage, while small firms remained the lowest throughout the period. It is also clear that all three categories rose over time, although the growth of large businesses was the most noticeable.
To begin with, large businesses used social media far more than the other groups in every year. Their figures increased from about 78% in 2012 to almost 90% in 2015, which was the peak of the period. Although this number fell slightly in 2016, large companies still remained significantly ahead of both small and medium-sized firms.
Medium-sized businesses also saw a steady rise. Their usage grew from roughly 35% in 2012 to just over 50% in 2015, before dropping a little in the final year. In contrast, small companies had the lowest percentages, increasing only slightly from around 28% to about 40% by 2016. Because of this, the gap between small and large businesses remained wide across all the years.