The majority (53.1%) of Internet users belong to at least one social networking site, but the amount of time spent on the sites is somewhat short, compared to overall time spent online, according to a new report from Burst Media.
Among 18-34 year olds, 40 percent spend less than 30 minutes per day on sites like Facebook and MySpace. The top content categories for that demographic actively seek out entertainment news (48.6%), gaming (40.5%), local/national news (37.3%) and social media (35.5%).
More than half of boomers are viewing local/national news (55.8%) content, two out of five (41.6%) are viewing shopping/comparison content, and 40.2 percent are viewing health information.
Age impacts the use of social networking sites with 77.4 percent of 18-34 year olds belonging to social networking sites, compared to 47.5 percent of baby boomers. Women overall (56.5% versus 50.6% of men) across all age segments are more likely than men to belong to a social networking site.
“There is no denying the fact that social networks are hugely popular, but it is important to recognize that Internet users still spend a significant portion of their time online visiting content sites,” said Chuck Moran, Vice President of Marketing at Burst Media.
“The results of this survey reveal a tremendous opportunity for marketers to utilize both social media and the thousands of high quality Long Tail web sites to reach their target audiences.”
