“Membership” Has It’s Privileges
According to The Nielsen Company's "Global Faces and Networked Places,"
revealing the new global footprint of social networking including both
social networks and blogs, "Member Communities" have become the fourth
most popular online category, ahead of personal email, and growing
twice as fast as search, portals, PC software and email. Active reach
in "member communities" now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent
to 65 percent.
John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online, says "social networking has
become a fundamental part of the global online experience… (and) will
continue to alter… the global online landscape… (as well as) the
consumer experience at
large… "
According to the report, the world's most popular social network is
visited monthly by three in every 10 people online across the nine
markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. Other key
findings include:
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One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
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The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to "Member Community" Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group
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Mobile, in social networking, is up 249% in the UK and 156% in the US
over last year; 2 million people in the UK, and 10.6 million in the US
The story is consistent across the world, ‘Member Communities' have
taken a foothold in every major market from 50% of the online
population in Switzerland and Germany to 80% in Brazil. Facebook has
become the largest player on the global stage. The study found that
Facebook's greatest growth has come from 35-49 year-olds, and it has
added twice as many 50-64 year-olds as those under 18. Now that social
media has broken out
of the youth demographic, the search for a workable ad model is even
more urgent, says the report.
"If the successful ad model can be found," says the report, "a
significant shift in advertising revenue from 'traditional' online
media towards social media could be realized."
The prevailing wisdom, concludes the report, is that the current
level of advertising activity on social networks isn't consummate with
the size and highly engaged levels of the audience. But, the Nielsen
report
says, advertising and social media to date have not been compatible.
Advertising has typically performed poorly in chat and e-mail because
of social media's communications role. The larger challenge for
advertising is to move from an
interruptive role to joining conversations, concludes Nielsen.
Member Communities' now reach over 5 percentage points more of the
Internet population than it did a year ago, a growth rate more than
twice that of any of the other four largest sectors.
Social networks online started out among the younger audience. As
the networks have become more mainstream with the passage of time, the
audience has become broader and older. Consequently, people under 18
years
old are making up less of the social network and blogging audience,
whereas the 50+ age group are accounting for more of the audience.
In terms of sheer audience numbers, the greatest growth for Facebook
has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million). Facebook
has added almost twice as many 50-64 year olds visitors (+13.6 million)
than
it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million). If the average
month-on-month audience changes over the last six months were to
continue, by mid-June 2009 there would be as many 35-49 year olds on
Facebook as 18-34
year olds.
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