Facebook: The Digital Age of Social Media
In the UK alone, figures released by the UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) have estimated that over the last 3 years, the average internet user spends up to 65% more time on internet. (With the average user now spending over 22 hours on the internet per month.)
Figures revealed that the greatest time users spent on the internet was on social networks or blogs. This accumulated to nearly a quarter of the users time online. This trend has indicated a growing shift in how people use the internet and more importantly how the internet is becoming an integral part of our daily lives.
The rise of such social media sites such Myspace, Twitter and Facebook, mainly stems from their ability to constantly expand their sphere of influence by progressively acquiring additional users.
Facook in particular, feeds off itself and gets bigger by constantly expanding and developing inter connective means of communication. This has subsequently meant users now spend more and more of their time and lives on the site, interacting and communicating with other users.
Surveys conducted by the National Family Week have highlighted growing realisations that more young people see Facebook and other social media sites as playing an influential part of their lives.
From the surveys conducted by the National Family Week found that: “40% of girls identified Facebook as one of the most important things in their lives - compared with 6% of boys.”
The resulting trend from the National Family Week has highlighted a growing awareness of how more people view technology and its implications as means of communication and increasingly as a way of life.
Facebook: The Lion of Social Media
While other social media sites such as. Delicious, Flickr, Reddit and Twitter have each in their own way contributed to the growing world of social media, Facebook, still stands out from the crowd.
Recent statistics from Google have shown that Facebook now has 540 million visitors and is now the most visited site on the web. Aside from the original concept plan of Facebook to connect friends and social networks, the ever growing social site has become a platform for greater interaction, commerce and communication.
From a business and influential perspective, Facebook is becoming an essential tool to getting your product, service or message across to a world wide audience. It is estimated that now up to 10,000 small businesses each day are creating Facebook pages (Business Profiles) featuring news and information that help users keep informed and up to date about new promotions and events.
With competitive pressures and a tight economic situation, many companies are adopting social media such as Facebook as an alternative form to traditional advertising.
While many businesses and advertising services recommend utilising Google Ads before and other online advertising tools than to relying on social media. Facebook, along with other social media sites has progressively demonstrated a shift in the manner in which internet users see the web.
Therefore, given the growing influence that social media sites such as Facebook, has on more and more people in the UK and worldwide, their role is constantly expanding, incorporating not just a means of communication but also economic and in some situations political actions.
Whether as a means of indirect marketing or advertising, Facebook is quickly becoming a valuable business tool in a digital age of commerce. With more people attracted and engrossed in the internet than ever before and with more people attached to social media as a means of communicating it is understandable to see the business potential that can be acquired through social media.