Social media comes of age
Nielson’s social media report for 2012 reveals that social media is no longer in its infancy, as it continues to grow rapidly with Facebook still leading the pack.
The report, which looks at data gathered from the US market, shows a big jump of 37% in the amount of time people spend online compared to last year (2011).
In July 2012, people spent 121 billion minutes on social media, compared to 88 billion in July 2011.
Roughly 20% of total time online is accessed via personal computer (PC), and 30% of total time online via mobile, according to Nielson.
“The recent proliferation of mobile devices and connectivity helped fuel the continued growth of social media,” Nielson said.
“While the computer remains as the predominant device for social media access, consumers’ time spent with social media on mobile apps and the mobile web has increased 63% in 2012, compared to the same period last year.
Nielson Social Media 2012 – time spent
The social network king
“The number of social media networks from which consumers can choose has exploded, and countless sites are adding social features, or integrations,” the report said.
In 2012, Facebook and Twitter continued to be the most popular social networks, while Pinterest showed the largest year-over-year increase in both unique audience and time spent of any social network across PC, mobile web and apps.
Facebook remained the most-visited social network in the U.S.
The site got 152.2 million visitors from PC; 78.4 million users via mobile apps; and mobile web drew 74.3 million visitors.
According to the report, Facebook was multiple times the size of the next largest social site across each platfor (Blogger, Twitter and Twitter, respectively.)
Although reigning supreme, Facebook showed year-on-year decline in the number of visitors from the PC platform – though and 85% and upwards increase through mobile.
Pinterest showed massive growth year over year, growing its visitors 1047% from PC (to 27.2 million visitors), 1698% increase via mobile apps (to 4.9 million visitors) and a massive 4225% increase via mobile (to 14.3 million visitors).
Nielson Social Media 2012 – platforms
Mobile force
According to Nielson’s report, the two key driving forces behind the continued growth of social media are the advent of mobile devices, and sheer number and spread of social media platforms available to users.
“The personal computer is still at the center of the social networking experience, but consumers are increasingly looking to other devices to connect on social media,” said Dierdre Bannon, social media practice lead at Nielson.
“The number of social media networks consumers can choose from has exploded, and too many sites to count are adding social features or integration,” she said.
According to Bannon, with these two factors in mind, social media will continue to evolve, with social TV – video and TV-related content – being a key consumer point as more people across the word continue to use social media to access this content.
Social media will also continue to transform customer service and marketing, as consumers become more informed and form larger “word-of-mouth” networks – providing a prime opportunity for engangement, Bannon said.
“With more connectivity, consumers have more freedom to use social media wherever and whenever they want,” Bannon said.
“Social media is still growing rapidly and has become an integral part of our daily lives. Today, social networking is truly a global phenomenon,” she said.
Nielson Social Media 2012 – devices
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