A recent study revealed that the majority of time spent online is now predominately spent accessing social media websites. Nielsen noted that there was a 37% increase in time spent on social media websites this past year. Among those who use home computers 20% of time spent online was spent accessing social media sites, and for mobile users 30% of online time went towards social media. However, home computers still remain the most popular outlet for accessing social media websites, with mobile apps and mobile web usage close behind and on the rise (raising 63% from last year).
Among the top social media sites it is no surprise that Facebook is ranked the most popular, beating out the competition by a landslide. Mobile web and PC users combined allowed Facebook to top the charts, bringing in a total of 304.9 million users this past year. Other popular social media sites noted in the study were LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and WordPress.
With growing popularity social media sites such as these have also recently explored the idea of working with advertisers to sell ad space on their sites. Facebook was the first to explore this idea and has since been scrutinized over their decision to do so. However, though users initially complained of such a change Nielsen revealed that this change hasn’t actually deterred anyone from visiting their favorite social media website regularly. Thus, perhaps Nielsen’s study not only revealed the growing trend in social media, but also the potential lucrative perk that on-site advertisements could provide such networks.
