Social Networking - what's it all about?
/Use of Internet Social Networking - sites and services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others - in Australia is exploding.
New figures released by Nielsen revealed that Australians spent 1.6 million hours on social media sites in June this year, up from 800,000 hours a year earlier.Nielsen's director of market research, Melanie Ingrey, said social media was always going to be a successful category this year but the extent of that success has caught people by surprise.
"To see a category double its time online numbers in a year, off what was already a considerable base, is truly phenomenal and the mind boggles at where we can go from here," she said.
I also noticed this bit of information earlier this week:
Total prime time TV audiences have fallen below 5m in Australia, according to a new analysis of viewing data so far this year. This is despite the arrival of the new Freeview and subscription TV channels to tempt viewers.
According to the analysis of figures across the prime 6pm to 10.30pm slot, the average audience has fallen from 5,027,868 in 2008 to 4,969,810 in 2009. This marks a decline of around 60,000 prime time viewers per evening – or a fall of just over 1%. This is despite the Australian population growing by more than 2% during the same period.
Coincidence? Not at all. Online Social Networks are changing how people spend their leisure time, and it's changing the way people work as well.
In the past month I have delivered a couple of presentations to groups interested in online Social Networking and how it can help individuals and their businesses. Interest has been very high and I've been invited to speak again - so consider this a pre-invitation invitation! If you're interested in Social Networking and what it can do for you and your business, and you'd like to attend one of our presentation-slash-discussions, drop me a line via email.
--Simon