It is with Interest that we find that social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube continue to grow in power and status and attract huge visitor numbers within the UK especially over the Christmas period. Hitwise UK has listed some interesting figures regarding the popularity of sites such as these which are abbreviated below.
- On Christmas Day 2007, Facebook reached a peak in traffic that wasn't surpassed until July 2008. Traffic reached a new high on Christmas Day 2008, when Britain's most popular social networking site accounted for 1 in every 22 UK Internet visits. With a market share of 4.65%, Facebook's traffic was up 69% on Christmas Day 2007, and it was the second most visited website after Google UK (8.63%).
- Video site YouTube received more UK Internet traffic than Microsoft Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) for the first time during Christmas week 2008. For the week ending 27/12/08, YouTube accounted for 2.13% of all UK Internet visits compared to 2.11% for Live Mail. During the same week, YouTube was the third most visited website in the UK behind Google UK and Facebook, while Live Mail ranked fourth. (info from Hitwise)
In a nutshell, these and other social networking websites accounted for 1 in every 20 UK Internet visits during the Christmas week; for the week ending 27/12/08. If 1 in every 2o odd visits in the UK is going to these websites then it obviously makes sense for businesses to tap into these huge online networks to promote themselves to these online audiences. This is especially true for online retailers during the Christmas period.
We have discussed previously the importance of social networking and the potential value of it to the business community. This data from Hitwise confirms this.
It's time the business community switched on to this unique opportunity; businesses need to look at ways of creating new revenue streams in this current economic climate and social networking just might be one of the ways to go!
Christmas 2009 - Only 330 days to go!
Post date 28/01/2009
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