Social Network Use to Grow

With the rise in popularity of social networks like facebook, bebo, hi5, myspace, linkedIn etc., advertisers are starting to realize the importance of the space.  eMarketer.com has just released a report that has some fresh new data on the social networking phenomenon.  It aggregates data from international marketers and communication researchers and provides some very interesting points about both usage and marketing spends on social networks.  Here is an overview:

- Right now 37% of adult Internet users and 70% of online teens use social networking sites monthly
- By 2011 50% of adults and 84% of teens will be using social networking sites

Social networking is not going away.  These aren’t just normal websites that people decide to go or not to go, their lives are starting to be intertwined with them.  Once someone spends the time to link in their whole network of friends and family via sites such as facebook, there is stickiness.  They are going to come back again and again, many times daily or at least weekly.  When you add in the sites features, such as posting videos, pictures and communication, these sites are becoming one stop shops for people’s online life.  For the youth, social networking sites are becoming email and instant messaging replacements, communication systems in their own right.  Email is decidedly unpopular with the younger generation for several reasons but mostly because they use facebook and myspace (or other networking sites) to communicate instead.

If 70% of online teens are using social networking sites now, there is nothing to say that they will stop using them when they enter the working world and become adults in a few years.

What about the older people (everyone that is not a teenager)?

Although the adult crowd is still using email and IM as their primary means of online communication, they are getting increasingly involved in social networking as well.  They are discovering the value of linking in their network for both personal and business reasons.  We typically hear how they love to be able to get in contact with long lost friends and business contacts.   Adults typically use social networking sites less often but we project this will also increase as well.

In summary, social networking is here to stay and already has become an online activity that is generating mass amounts of traffic.  Advertisers are starting to take notice and are looking to get in front of this sector of online traffic.

Ad Chap can help get your message out to millions of people on social networks, it is our specialty and our mission to get you the best value for your social networking advertising dollars.

This entry was posted on December 17th, 2007 and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.