There are some fantastic videos around extolling the power of social media, demonstrating it’s rapid growth and answering the question: ‘Why should businesses use social media?’ (like this ) but they have been based on global or US statistics, until now…

This video details statistics on social media growth and how we use the internet in the UK.

If you’re a business based in the UK, this video brings the compelling argument for using social media marketing closer to home and provides useful scale to those US statistics.

At this time the source of these stats aren’t clear. The research was carried out by The Oxford Research Agency and I hope at some stage Simply Zesty, the PR firm behind the video, will reveal them. Here are some of the stats featured:

85% of the UK population is online, 25% write blogs while 60% read them.

64% own a profile on social networks.

25% of adults use the internet on their phone.

78% of internet users look for information about goods and services online.

1 in 5 adults prefer surfing the internet than watching TV with social networking being the most popular pastime.

70% of online users trust recommendations from strangers online over advertising banners.

90% trust recommendations from people they know.

20% tweets contain reference to a product or brand.