Mar 10 2009
Social Media: Now More Popular Than Email!
Nielsen Online recently released a report showing that Social Media is now more popular than email. Check these amazing stats on Social Media:
- Coveted 18 to 34 age group spends 4.3 x amount of time on Social Media as TV, newspapers and other media COMBINED
- Folks ARE still reading but reading blogs rather than books – 13 Million active blogs and more than 5B readers
- Out of $50B TV ads last year – 8% now moved to Youtube and net video will get MUCH higher
- Facebook adds 240K users per Day! That’s a mid sized city – per day!
- Facebook has 140 M active users – almost doubled in last 12 months, much faster than Google added members
- Time spent on Facebook increased by 566% from December 2007 to December 2008, compared to around 18% for the web overall.
- And in the UK, Facebook is used by a staggering 47% of the online population!
More Popular Than Email!
Nielsen Online recently issued a report that showed that two-thirds of the world’s internet population visited social networking or blogging sites, and that these sites accounted for 10% of total internet time. In fact, social media has become more popular than email! According to the data that Nielsen analyzed, the popularity of social media is only going to increase during the coming years. See the stats above for evidence of that.
Facebook Grows While MySpace Drops
On Nielsen’s figures, its global audience of 108.3m users each month is equivalent to 30% of the world’s web users. That reach grew 168% through 2008 alone, while arch-rival MySpace saw its global audience drop by 3% to 81 million monthly users.
Nielsen credits Facebook’s growth to simple design, broad appeal, better privacy controls and more inventive features than its rivals. But crucially, despite its popularity, Facebook’s focus on communication over entertainment makes it a less comfortable sell for advertising – even though its fastest growing userbase has been the older, more valuable 35-49 age group.
As Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank said “Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience. While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing.”
People are already spending more time and becoming increasingly engaged with social networking sites – across the globe, time spent on social media sites accounts for one in every eleven online minutes. Furthermore, the audience is starting to shift – although social networking and online communities are typically thought of as something for young people, as their popularity grows and they become more mainstream, their audience becomes older and demographically broader.
Dive into the Twitter and Facebook Stream
So, if your company is not involved in social media yet, what are you waiting for? It is no longer just for college kids swapping party stories or just a trendy option that might drive some sales, it is an essential part of doing business.
And while you are here, follow me on Twitter. Don’t yet have a Twitter account? Get one now and claim all the names you need for your business too. (each account will need its own email address)
Know you need this but don’t have time? Let the Social Media experts at Kaizen Marketing help set up and manage an effective presence for you. If social media is now more popular than email, don’t get left behind on this massive wave of a new form of communication.
And, for the very latest news from Facebook on the new interface and page structure, see these:
Facebook offers a “tour” of the new Homepage here.
Check out the new Facebook Pages design in a PDF they offer here.
