Last year, we produced our first report on the probability of locating social media accounts based on data gathered throughout 2021. We believe that this data holds immense value and can act as a measure of success for our online investigations, and here at NetWatch, we pride ourselves on locating every social media account for an individual.
As with our 2021 report, this data has been collated from every profiling instruction we have undertaken throughout 2022 between the ages of 16 and 80, focusing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn and Strava accounts. These platforms were chosen based on the fact that the bulk of our intelligence is obtained from this list, not to say that we don’t regularly utilise intelligence obtained from other platforms.
Compiling this information for the second time allowed us to draw some interesting year on year comparisons. In 2021, 73.4% of all investigations we conducted yielded at least one social media account. This figure increased to 75.8% in 2022, representing an overall rise in the incorporation of accounts and subsequently intelligence to be analysed.
Overall, we saw increases in every age range for every platform with a few anomalies, such as 16-21 year olds incorporating less Facebook and Twitter accounts. This was unsurprising, due to younger subjects leaning away from the platform and steering more towards photo and video-sharing based accounts. Instagram has now overtaken Facebook in being the most likely account to be located for this age bracket.
As expected, the number of TikTok accounts located increased in every age range, with the highest growth being in the 22-30 category from 24% in 2021 to 38% in 2022. Being a video-based platform, TikTok has proven to be key in a wealth of investigations, for example, by demonstrating mobility in personal injury based claims.
Strava accounts continue to be consistently located across the board for all demographics, with the figure sitting around the 10% mark from age 16 to age 60.
Although we continue to receive instructions for younger demographics, we still regularly located accounts for individuals aged 60 and over, with Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn being the most popular platforms. The probability of locating an account for an individual aged 60-80 rose in every category from 2021 to 2022, with LinkedIn being the highest increase from 13% to 18%.
Our full report on probability of locating social media at every range is available for a small fee and consists of infographics for each age range, a more in depth write up looking at our conclusions on the data, and full year on year comparison looking at what’s changed since 2021. Please email us on enquiries@netwatchglobal.com if you would like a copy of the report.
