Social Media Continues Staggering Growth

Everyone in business (and society) is now realizing that social media is here to stay and most have accepted blogs, Facebook and at least the concept of Twitter in their lives and communication. And if they haven’t, they soon will (or will be left behind).

But sometimes it’s difficult to put into context just how pervasive social media is becoming in society – and how quickly. Consider some of the following stats:

• 3 of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites
• For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year
• The average visitor spends 66% more time on social media sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year (source for above 3 facts: NieslsenWire)
• Did you know that Australian web users average the most time on social networking sites, averaging 7 hours 19 minutes in April (followed by the U.S. and Italy with around six and a half hours each)?
• Two-thirds of Americans claim to visit sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, up about 230% from the 20% penetration in 2007, and 43% are visiting these sites more than once a day (source: ExperianSimmons)
• And while nearly 9-in-10 online 18-to 34-year-olds visit such sites today, 41% of online adults age 50 and older are making monthly visits to sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (source: ExperianSimmons)

Social Networking continues to grow (image and statistics provided by ExperianSimmons

The bottom line? Social media is here to stay. There were those who wondered why any non-technology related company would actually need a website 10-15 years ago and now its a given that every company, organization (and now with social media sites, people) benefit from having an online presence. It may be hard for businesses to understand today but social media is having a dramatic impact on business today – and its only going to grow in the future.

The numbers don’t lie.