Web savvy consumers are spending about three times as much of their time on the Web on social networking and blog sites like Facebook and Twitter as they did a year ago, according to new research from The Nielsen Company. The research reveals the time spent by Americans on social networking went from 6 percent of all time last August on the Internet to about 17 percent last month! Small business owners and entrepreneurs are ramping up the time they spend on social media reaching millions of people with their business brand in 140 characters or less: Twitter!
As more people spend time on social media, more
ad dollars are flowing to these sites. Advertising spending on
social networking sites and blogs more than doubled despite the
recession, going from about $49 million in August 2008 to about
$108 million in August 2009 according to the Nielson research.
Ad spending on
entertainment blogs and social networking sites grew the most, up
812 percent, with travel sites showing the second highest rate of
growth at 364 percent. Spending on business-to-business sites grew
184 percent to $1.9 billion at a time when such spending fell by 8
percent elsewhere on the Internet. There are signs the
spending on social media will increase.
More than
56% of marketers plan to incorporate social
media into their businesses next year, according to the Center
for Media Research. Many savvy business owners and
entrepreneurs I’ve met in our SBTV.com community already seeing
amazing results and we’ve got their
stories!
Please follow me on Twitter to learn more about small business trends and events to give you a competitive edge in business at http://twitter.com/danitablackwood
