Social Networking App Usage in Q3 2011 Is up 30% From Q3 2010
Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report” for the third quarter of 2011 offers an array of interesting insights about social media’s growing popularity. Among the findings is that social networking via mobile devices is growing in popularity, especially when it comes to apps.
According to the report, social networks and blogs take up 22.5 percent of Americans’ time on the Internet, more than twice online games, which was second place with 9.8 percent of users’ time.
Email followed with 7.6 percent, while portals claimed 4.5 percent of users’ time on the Internet. Videos/movies took up 4.4 percent of users’ Internet time, while search took up 4.0 percent, instant messaging took up 3.3 percent, software manufacturers took up 3.2 percent, classifieds/auctions took up 2.9 percent, and current events and global news took up 2.6 percent.
The 75 “other” categories, including multi-category entertainment, adult and apparel/beauty, accounted for 35.1 percent of American’s Internet time in the third quarter.
Females ages 18-34 were the most likely social networkers during the quarter. They were also most likely to be located in New England, with either a bachelor’s or post-graduate degree, and a household income of below $50,000 per year.
LinkedIn and Wikia are the only two of the top 10 social networks and blogs in the U.S. to skew male.
Facebook reigned supreme in the land of social networks, drawing 140.3 million unique visitors in May. Sixty-two percent of Facebook’s page views came from female visitors.
Blogger was second place with 50.1 million unique visitors, while Twitter boasted 23.6 million visitors and WordPress visited 22.4 million visitors.
MySpace (19.3 million), LinkedIn (17.8 million), Tumblr (11.9 million), Six Apart TypePad (8.6 million), Yahoo Pulse (8.4 million) and Wikia (7.6 million) rounded out the top 10 social networks and blogs.
Facebook took up 53.5 billion minutes of U.S. Internet users’ time in May, followed by Yahoo with 17.2 billion minutes, Google with 12.5 billion minutes, AOL Media Network with 11.4 billion minutes and MSN/Windows Live/Bing with 9.5 billion minutes.
According to Nielsen, 37 percent of consumers said they access social media through their mobile phones. Also, 47 percent of consumers’ phones feature social networking, while 30 percent said they value this feature the most.
Social networking app usage is up 30 percent from the third quarter of 2010, according to Nielsen. The top 10 categories of apps used by smartphone owners who download apps are games (67 percent), weather (65 percent), social networking (60 percent), maps/navigation/search (55 percent), music (45 percent), news (42 percent), entertainment (36 percent), banking/finance (35 percent), shopping/retail (28 percent) and dining/restaurant (27 percent).
The report also found that while more women watch video on social networks, men watch videos on social networks longer.
Tumblr has also skyrocketed in the last year, nearly tripling its audience. In May, Tumblr claimed 11.9 million unique visitors.
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