While analysing statistics, however, it is important to remember that numbers by themselves are meaningless. They become meaningful when these numbers are used to delineate trends. Most statistics show that 2009 is the year for social media. People are using sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In more and more as their first option to connect with the world around them.
According to the social media marketing statistics for 2009 analysed by Neilsen Online, social networks and blogs beat other online activity, including personal email, to become the 4th most popular online activity. While 67% of the global online population visit member communities, the time spent on social media sites now accounts for almost 10% of all internet time (Nielson Online, March 2009).
Let us look at the social media statistics for 2009 for some of the most popular social networking sites to further understand the emerging trends:
- MySpace continues to be the most popular social media site in the US, capturing 31.95% of all social media visitors. Globally, however, MySpace has fallen behind Facebook as the leading social media site, with Facebook recording 65.7 million unique visitors in 2009, as compared to 54.1 million at MySpace.
- Twitter has seen staggering acceptance from the global Internet population, growing by 76.8% from February to March and a whopping yearly growth rate of 1,382%, from February 2008 to February 2009.
- Facebook grew 314% in Europe in terms of yearly traffic from February 2008 to February 2009.
- According to the February 2009 statistics released by Clean Cut Media, YouTube was the #1 video site on the web, with 300 million visitors each month.
- According to Compete, Digg saw a 91% increase in traffic, while Stumbleupon and FriendFeed recorded a huge increase of over 180% and 3100%, respectively, as compared to 2008.
- On the other hand, HotorNot.com, Technorati.com and Bloglines recorded a decline of 67%. 35% and 21%, respectively in unique visitors, as compared to 2008.
Here are some figures I took from alexa.com which look at the last 2 years. I think it makes it easier to see what’s happening to facebook, myspace, youtube and twitter when it’s shown as a graph.
It’s staggering that almost 1 in 4 internet users visit facebook and youtube more or less daily.
As business, you can create pages on facebook. Given that lot of people are using facebook, it makes sense to start building relationships with prospects and customers there.
Here are some examples of how you can integrate your business with facebook, youtube and twitter:
Facebook fan pages: thinklikeaser website success system.
Youtube channels: thinklikeasuser website success system
Twitter: @thinklikeauser @websuccesssys
Make 2010 the year when you start harnessing the power of social media.
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How can you say MySpace is the most popular when the chart you posted clearly shows it’s declined to now being the least popular and Facebook having steadily climbed to the top?
Hi Gabi,
The Myspace figures came from a different source: Nielson Online, March 2009.
The chart came from Alexa, which is very US focused, which could explain the discrepancy in figures to a certain extent.
Quantcast, also US based, gets different figures again: http://www.quantcast.com/myspace.com
What is clear about MySpace. is that all the sets of readily available figures available show that the site is in decline.