Almost 21 Million Brits Visit Top Social Media Sites
Almost 21 million Britons visited at least one of the ten most popular social media websites in January this year, equating to over 60% of Britons online, according to figures released by Nielsen Online.
This represents an increase of over 20% year on year, when 17.1 million visited at least one of the top ten.
In that time, YouTube has replaced Wikipedia as the UKs most popular social media websites.
Compared to Jan 07, Facebook and, social networking add-on tool, Slide, enter the top ten at the expense of Friends Reunited and Google Video, which dropped to 16 and 14, respectively.
| UK’s most popular social media websites: Jan 2008 | ||||||
| Rank J08 | Rank J07 | Website | UK Unique Audience (000s) Jan 08 | UK Unique Audience (000s) Jan 07 | Change in UA Jan 07 – Jan 08 | Social media type |
| 1 | 2 | YouTube | 10,426 | 6,667 | 56% | Video |
| 2 | 1 | Wikipedia | 9,557 | 7,758 | 23% | Information |
| 3 | 18 | 8,513 | 1,048 | 712% | Network | |
| 4 | 4 | Blogger | 5,145 | 3,697 | 39% | Blogging |
| 5 | 3 | MySpace | 5,026 | 5,513 | -9% | Network |
| 6 | 8 | Bebo | 4,090 | 2,670 | 53% | Network |
| 7 | 16 | Slide | 3,355 | 1,092 | 207% | Add-on tool |
| 8 | 10 | Yahoo! Answers | 3,319 | 2,111 | 57% | Information |
| 9 | 6 | Windows Live Spaces | 3,127 | 2,716 | 15% | Network |
| 10 | 9 | TripAdvisor | 2,364 | 2,186 | 8% | Travel reviews |
| Source: Nielsen Online, UK NetView, home & work data, including applications, Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 | ||||||
“Social media is a growing and varied culture, providing a wealth of entertainment, information and connections for the increasing number of people being drawn in by its power,” said Alex Burmaster, internet analyst, Nielsen Online.
“The fact that almost two-thirds of Britons online visited at least one of the top social media sites shows it isn’t a niche part of the Internet but is now the backbone supporting its growth.”
Social network PerfSpot is the fastest growing social media site over the past year, growing by 713% in 9 months, slightly more than Facebook grew (712%) across the whole year (see Facebook Sees First Drop In Unique Users).
Half of the ten fastest growing are video sites, led by vidShadow which has grown by 639% in the past two months, November 2007 being its first measurable month of data.
“Whilst the majority of the most popular social media sites are the networks, most of the fastest growing are video sites, which points to video being the biggest star of the 2008 social media scene,” said Burmaster.
“Whether it’s people snacking on video clips or feasting on full length TV programmes and movies, the video sites look set to be the name on everybody’s lips as they improve their technology, the ease of use and awareness amongst our TV loving nation. We’ll have to see if sites like vidShadow or Veoh join YouTube in being as famous as Facebook.”
At MediaTel Group’s recent ‘Future of Online’ seminar, panellists expressed the view that whilst social networking is here to stay, the dramatic growth the sites have experienced over the past few years will settle, and marketers and advertisers will have to discover the best ways to capitalise on the format (see Social Networking Growth To Settle).
Nielsen Online: www.nielsen-online.com