Author(s) : ComScore

In March 2007, 56% of the world’s online population was on social networking.
Email reigned supreme as the king of communication channels online.
The growth in popularity in social networking has created and engendered new online consumer behaviors.

Hypothesis:

1. Social Media is the World’s Most Popular Online Activity

2. Social networking behavior both transcends and reflects regional differences around the world

3. The importance of Facebook cannot be overstated

4. Microblogging is a disruptive force

5. Local social networks are making inroads globally

6. It’s not just young people using social networking anymore-it’s everyone

7. Communications are going Social

8. Social networking leads in online display advertising in the US, but lags in share of dollars

9. The next disrupters have yet to be decided

10. Mobile devices are fueling the social addiction

Results:

1. There are 1,2 billion users of social networking in the world, that is to say 82% of the world’s online population.

Social networking has more than tripled in the last few years. Nearly 1 in every 5 minutes (20%) spent online is now spent on social networking sites, contrary to in March 2007, only 6%.

 

 

2. The total time spent by users on social networking grew by at least 35% over the past year, for each region. (North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific). United States is the region where the percentage of online population using social networking is the biggest: 98%, contrary to China who reach a 53% rate. Moreover, women spend more hours on social networking than men: 6,5h for her and 5h for him.

 

3. Facebook is not the first social networking used in every region. Indeed, in Brazil it’s Orkut which have the biggest total unique visitors (35 contrary to 30 for Facebook), and the best average minutes per visitor (232 contrary to 205 for Facebook).

 

4. Twitter, Tumblr and Sina Weibo are every three microblogging. Tumblr and Sina Weibo (Chinese microblogging leader) realized the best inroad on the Web: +172% for Tumblr and +181% for Sina Weibo). In 2011, the moment the most tweeted was Video Music Awards in August 2011, with 8 868 tweets/second! Amazing!

 

5. Linkedin generates the most traffic from the US, it shows its highest market penetration in the Netherlands, where it reached more than a quarter (27 percent) of the Dutch online population in October 2011.

6. Between July 2010 and October 2011 social networking reach in older segment has all but caught up. Indeed, it’s now quite similar across age groups. Users 55 and older represent the fastest growing in social networking usage (+9,3%) contrary to users 15-24 who have a 5% reach.

 

 

7. Teenagers and young adults age 15-24 use more social networking (34%) than instant messengers (-42%) and Email (-22%) between July 2010 and October 2011. It’s possible that social networking could become the most important communication channel across all age groups.

 

8. More than a quarter of ads are seen on social networking sites, the category only attracts 15% of US display ad dollars. Facebook is by far the largest publisher, he delivered 28% of display ad impressions.

 

9. Google+ surged to 25 million global unique visitors in less than a month, faster than other social networking like Facebook which took 36 months and Twitter 33 months. Sina Weibo exhibited the highest growth rate for audience size over 2010 at 181% and Tumblr with a 172% increase. Microblogging could emerge as a pivotal force shaping the future of social networking behavior.

 

 

 

10. The UK shows the highest social networking penetration among mobile users at 35,4%. This phenomenon can be attributed to the growth in popularity of smartphones. In the US, 38,8% smartphones users accessed social networking site or blog almost every day and 64,1% accessed social networking site or blog almost every in a month among 40,4% accessed via app. In UE5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK), 23,1% accessed social networking site or blog almost every day and 45,2% every in a month among 22,8% accessed via app.

 

Conclusion:

 

This report highlights two key factors that will continue to drive the web and will impact marketing, business and people’s lives and change behaviours.
It is the emergence of a “mobile” and “social” web that will become self learning and even predictive because the social graph with its explicit and implicit data will know more about us than we even know about ourselves.

Author:                        

ComScore is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. comscore helps its clients better understand, leverage and profit from the rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape by providing data, analytics and on-demand software solutions for the measurement of online ads and audiences, media planning, website analytics, cross media, e-commerce […] and a broad variety of emerging forms of digital consumer behavior.