More than 70 percent of Internet users in Australia visited a social networking site in June, up 29 percent from the previous year, according to a new study from comScore.
“Social networking continues to grow in popularity both across Australia and throughout the world,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region.
“Social networking is now an essential part of peoples’ daily online routine, providing a level of engagement and reach that far exceeds most other content categories. Understanding how to leverage this audience successfully is both a challenge and significant opportunity for most digital marketers today.”
Nearly 9 million Australians visited a social networking site in June, making it one of the most popular content categories online. Facebook was the most popular social networking site with more than 6 million visitors and growing 95 percent from the previous year.
MySpace ranked second with 3.5 million visitors, up 5 percent, followed by Windows Live Profile with nearly 2 million visitors. Twitter achieved the most substantial growth, attracting 800,000 visitors in June, up from just 13,000 visitors a year ago. Google’s Orkut also experienced significant growth reaching 252,000 visitors, up 607 percent.
Google sites ranked as the most visited property in Australia in June with 10.7 million visitors, 78 percent of whom were visitors to social networking sites and 16 percent of whom were heavy social networkers. Microsoft sites ranked as the second largest property with 9.5 million visitors, followed by Facebook with 6.1 million visitors.
“Knowing that the vast majority of a site’s visitors are social networking users should be a wakeup call to any marketer trying to understand its audience,” said Hodgman.
“Engaging your audience is not only about how you interact with them when they are on your site, but also about how you reach out and interact with them through other online channels, including social networks. As social networking sites increasingly become one of the Internet’s most popular destinations, it is especially critical for media companies to engage their audience where they are spending the majority of their time online.”
