2
2009
The Social State – what does it mean for marketers?
Much has been communicated about social media, and rightly so. When a set of websites can command an audience comprising tens of millions of people and billions of monthly visits, people are going to pay close attention and have a lot to say about the sites.
According to Nielsen
- In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.
- In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.
I created the graph above using Compete. When reviewing this graph, I find a few things interesting. It seems obvious that there is one clear leader that has the wind at its back – Facebook. Facebook had more monthly visits in July 2009 than Twitter, YouTube and MySpace combined. Facebook has more than doubled in unique visitors in the last seven months. Keep in mind they doubled off a base of 60M in December! While Twitter is gaining ground and grew exponentially, their trajectory has leveled off and they have a much smaller user base than Facebook. Nevertheless, don’t lose sight of Twitter.
If you are a marketer or business owner, you need to pay attention to these trends. Specifically, you should be able to answer two questions. Is Facebook a place where my brand, product or service should have a presence? If yes, what does that presence look like?
The bottom line here is that social networking is consuming more and more time and mindshare of consumers. How is your business going to communicate with its target audience given these ever changing consumption trends?
