There’s never been a more important time to be using social networking sites such as Facebook to research, reach and connect with your audience. Why’s this? Just over a week ago it was reported that social networking site Facebook had overtaken Google as the most visited website in the USA.
As the graph below shows Facebook and Google have been jostling for position, on a weekly basis. They also have both consistently been growing their user base.
Facebook overtakes Google for a full week in March 2010
For the week ending 13 March; Facebook overtook Google, this is not new; but it normally only happens over the Christmas and New Year period. According to Hitwise, this is the first time that Facebook has outranked Google for an entire week. Perhaps a new trend is developing, no matter what; it is timely reminder of the power of social networking sites like Facebook.
Facebook stats at a glance:
- More than 400 million active users
- 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- More than 60 million status updates posted each day
- More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
- Average user has 130 friends on the site
- Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
- Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
News, business information and engagement are some of the key reasons people are using the Facebook, it’s not always about keeping up to date with friends, family, colleagues; more and more people are using it to keep abreast of news and general information.
People are using social networking sites to connect, engage and research markets, to locate people who are looking for products or services; this is something that Google can’t really offer and therefore can either be done through traditional research companies (at cost) or through social media sites (for free).
With the numbers of people joining Facebook growing daily and recent estimates of over 400 million users, it’s no surprise that it is being used as a research and business tool.
A quick look at who uses Facebook helps reinforce why businesses should and are using it as a marketing tool, a tool to not only wave the ‘flag’, but that also drive traffic to their website.
In New Zealand current estimates put the total number of users at over 1.4million, including people of all ages. This is a massive platform for businesses to connect with their market.
With the news that Facebook has again dethroned Google, it makes sense for businesses to be using it to connect andengage with users and help drive traffic to their websites. The social media phenomenon continues to captivate audiences all over the world, the only question left is what’s next?
Note: It’s important to point out that the data used to show that Facebook overtook Google only relates to Google.com, and excludes all other Google products (Gmail, YouTube or Google News).
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Posted in Blog | March 29th, 2010. Author: SocialMedia@TWC
