Global Time Spent Social Networking Rises 82%

Global consumers increased the amount of time they spent on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter by 82% in December 2009 compared to December 2008, according to The Nielsen Company.

Time, Unique Audience Increases for Social Networking Sites

In December 2008, global consumers spent an average of three hours, three minutes and 54 seconds on social networking sites. That amount of time increased to five hours, 35 minutes and five seconds one year later. In addition, unique audience increased 27%, from 242 million in December 2008 to 307.4 million in December 2009.

Facebook Increases US Dominance

Facebook dramatically increased its dominance of the US online social networking market between December 2008 and December 2009. In December 2009, Facebook recorded about 110 million unique visitors, a 100% increase from 55 million unique visitors in December 2008. Myspace, which remained the second-most popular US online social network, saw its number of unique visitors drop about 17%, from roughly 60 million in December 2008 to roughly 50 million in December 2009. While Twitter only recorded 18.1 million unique visitors in December 2009, this represented 579% growth from 2.7 million unique visitors a year earlier.

Aussies Love Spending Time on Social Networks

Australians’ reputation for sociability transcends into the virtual world. Although Australia only ranked number nine on the list of countries with total social network unique audience for December 2009 (9.9 million), on average Australians spent the most time on social networks for the month (six hours, 52 minutes, 28 seconds). The US by far led in unique audience during December 2009 (142 million) but came in second in terms of time spent on social networks (six hours, nine minutes, 13 seconds). Japan had the second-highest unique audience monthly total (46.5 million) but came in 10th for time spent per person (two hours, 50 minutes, 21 seconds).

Facebook Beats Text, Email

In one sign that it is truly becoming a dominant means of communication, a recent survey by Prompt Communications indicates that among a pool of 300 consumers in Boston, 96% of them use Facebook to communicate with friends and family on a regular basis. While Facebook trailed the phone at 99%, it beat text messaging at 93% and email at 91%.

Social Media Usage Goes from Strength to Strength

Social Media Sites Grow in popularity in Australia

So which social media sites were the most popular?

In June, over 70% of Internet users visited a social network site, that transposes into an increase of 29%.

What’s more, social networking use is quite high across the web, composing almost 90% of users that populated Australia’s top Internet properties for the month.

But here we go, I’ve written a lot about the impact social media usage is having around the world and having spent the first part of August attending the Inman technology conference in San Francisco, where social media was a dominant theme, I thought I’d take a look at what is happening in the Australian market.

Social media is now an essential part of peoples’ daily on-line routine, providing a level of engagement and reach that far exceeds most other content categories, so understanding how to leverage this audience successfully is both a challenge and significant opportunity for most small business owners.

Windows Live Profile chalked up close to two million visitors, but Twitter grew the most, rising to 800,000 visitors in June — up from 13,000 in June of last year.

Facebook had the most increase out of all the sites, with Twitter benefiting from it’s mainstream popularity.

If you are still  mystified by social media, let me know and I’ll help shed some light on how you can successfully tap into this medium for your business.

Other interesting facts are as follows:

Facebook led the sector with over 6 million visitors, growing 95% from last year.

It’s amazing how quickly you can get out of the discipline of writing blog posts, and having just returned from the US and not having written any articles for awhile, it’s really taken me a little time to get back in the mode again.

As always, let me know if I can assist you or answer any questions you may have with regard to Internet marketing and web site SEO.

Another idea is to attend one of my forth coming workshops on social media,information on what courses will be available, will be posted shortly on this blog.