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Users Increase Time Spent on Facebook and Twitter
Social networking sites are continuing to absorb more of people’s time online as Facebook and Twitter grow in online dominance.
Global analysis conducted by Nielsen Online found that consumers spend over five and a half hours on social networking sites per month on average. The results from December 2009 showed a dramatic increase of the amount of time spent using social sites from previous years.
In the last two years the average amount of time spent on sites like Facebook has more than doubled, with the average user spending just two hours and ten minutes a month on social networks in December 2007. By December 2008 that had risen to just over three hours a month, but the 2009 figures show an impressive 82 per cent increase since the previous year.
The take-up of social media users is growing as more people join the online phenomenon, but importantly, networks like Facebook are retaining their populations and encouraging people to spend significant amounts of time online each month. Two thirds of global social media users visited Facebook at least once a month, with the average user spending six hours a month on the site.
From an online advertising perspective, harnessing the marketing power of captive audiences on social networks is a smart move for those companies experiencing high traffic volumes. In the US the total minutes spent on social sites increased by 210 per cent year on year.
Twitter continued to be the fastest growing social site online with a 579 per cent growth in the US alone, one of Twitter’s most prolific markets.
Social Media news posted by Frank Hudson on 25 January 2010
