Engagement levels too, are also increasing, with the average number of hours spent using social media in the UK growing 54% over the past year, from 4.6 hours per person in May 2009 to 7.1 hours in May 2010. So, in other words, more and more people are spending longer and longer on social media sites.
This activity is also no longer the preserve of the initiated, however. Facebook - which brought social media to the masses when it began to pick up widespread acclaim less than five years ago, is now being used by eight in ten UK Internet users.
This wide usage is reflected worldwide as well; in fact, Facebook now has more than 500 million users globally; if it were a country it would be the world's third largest by population, behind China and India, but well ahead of its home country, the United States.
However, it is not just consumers who are becoming more immersed in social media. Celebrities and brands are as well, are placing increasingly greater emphasis on media interaction in this way. Lady Gaga's recent rise to 10 million Facebook fans - the first celebrity in the world to achieve this feat - attracted mass attention, signifying the arrival of social networking as a mainstream media entity.
Whether or not Twitter, which still has a relatively low user base of 4.3 million UK users, will be able to achieve the kind of mass following that Facebook already enjoys remains to be seen - it is a very different way of networking. However, more media-communications tools will undoubtedly evolve over the coming years and love it or hate it...
Social media is here to stay.
| Top 5 Social Media Sites Ranked by Total UK Unique Visitors (000)* | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Media | May-2009 | May-2010 | % Change |
| Total Internet Persons: 15+ | 36,855 | 38,229 | 4 |
| Social Networking | 29,444 | 33,301 | 13 |
| Facebook.com | 23,860 | 30,497 | 28 |
| Windows Live Profile | 6,891 | 6,425 | -7 |
| Twitter.com | 2,670 | 4,330 | 62 |
| MySpace | 6,531 | 3,315 | -49 |
| Linkedin.com | N/A | 3,181 | N/A |
*Source: comScore
Commenting on the statistics, Jamie Gavin , of Jay-G Media, said: "The fact that 9 in 10 Internet users are now using social media is perhaps unsurprising - these tools have changed the very fabric of the way we use the Web and are now as integral to online communications as search or email.
"What is perhaps even more significant is the reverence now being placed on these tools by existing celebrities and brands, as Lady Gaga's much celebrated recent rise to 10 million Facebook fans has demonstrated. Social media is no longer simply changing the way we think of the Internet, but is infiltrating mainstream celebrity and consumer culture, and changing the very nature of the traditional media we have become accustomed to."
