Social networking site users located around the world spent 5:35:05 (hh:mm:ss) on sites like Facebook and Twitter in December, up 82 percent from 3:03:54 in December 2008. In December 2007, 2:10:27 was spent on social networking sites by the average user, according to Nielsen.
Global users (defined by Nielsen as those located in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) made social networks and blogs the most popular online category in terms of average time spent in the last month of 2009, followed by online games and instant messaging.
Users in Australia led the way with an average of 6:52:28 spent per person on social networking sites in December, followed by the U.S. with 6:09:13, the U.K. with 6:07:54 and Italy with 6:00:07.
“People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009,” the company noted in a blog post.
“Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively. Among, the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. However, month-over-month, unique visitors decreased 5%”
The worldwide social networking audience was pegged at 307.4 million users in December, according to Nielsen. This marked a 27 percent increase from the unique audience of 242.0 million in December 2008, and a 46 percent increase from the 210.9 million users recorded in December 2007.
Facebook continued to grow its U.S. audience and led the way in December, followed by the ever-flagging MySpace. Twitter was third, followed by Classmates and LinkedIn.
HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass.-based marketing firm that aims to help small businesses, found that while growth in Twitter users worldwide reached a peak of 13.0 percent in March, this figure dropped to just 3.5 percent in October.
Still, this slowdown in growth may be the reason behind the increased usage by the average Twitter user, according to HubSpot in its “State of the Twittersphere” report.
The average Twitter user is following nearly 2.5 times as many users, boasts about three times as many followers and is updating about 2.5 times as much in January compared to July.
“Because of the slowing growth, today’s population of Twitter users has been using the tool longer than the population several months ago,” HubSpot explains in its report.
In addition to the increased usage, Twitter users are also filling in more profile information. In January, 53 percent of users had a bio in their profile, compared to 24 percent in July. Meanwhile, 65 percent had a location in their profile, compared to 31 percent in July, while 41 percent had a Web address in their profile, compared to 20 percent in July.
“As the average age of a Twitter user goes up, the average Twitter user has more time to learn and implement best practices,” HubSpot explains.
The company also highlights Twitter’s growing footprint in international locations, noting that 40 percent of the top 20 Twitter locations in January 2010 are outside North America, compared to just 15 percent in July.
Sources:</strong
http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/01.10.sot.report.pdf
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