Social Networks: a powerful tool for advertisers and agencies

A recent Nielsen Online report shows that social networks and blogging sites are now the fourth most popular activity on the Internet. While this is happening, advertisers and publishers find new ways of getting to their target consumers, which in this universe of social networks, tends to broaden thus attracting more advertising revenue.

The dramatic rise of social networking phenomenon means that social networks and blogs have passed personal email and are now visited by 66.8% of the world’s online global population compared to email with 65.1% visits.

What’s even more interesting, one in every 11 minutes spent online is spent on either a blog or a social network site. On a similar note, the greatest increase in active reach was that of the Member Community category, that being three times faster than the rate of growth for Internet overall.

It’s growing twice as fast as the other major categories, not only passing email but also barely standing behind software manufacturers with a global active reach of 73.4% and ranking behind portals and search at 85.2% and 85.9% respectively.

Despite these mind-boggling facts and as evidenced in Brand Republic, it’s still true that not many marketers quite understand what social networks can do for their business. Answer is: social networks can provide businesses with a wide array of marketing opportunities as well a high level of engagement and interaction with the right audiences. Needless to say, social media networks tap into a much much wider audience which in turn converts into a major increase in ad revenue.

To close, John Burbank CEO Nielsen Online affirms us that “while two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 6:58 pm and is filed under Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.