2007 was the year Social Networking (SN) really hit the mainstream and Facebook was its poster-child. The site, originally conceived for use by US college students, threw open its doors to the general public in September of 2006 and took just 12 months to reach and ultimately surpass all of its competitors. Audience figures from Internet research company Nielsen//NetRatings allow us to look more closely at Facebook’s meteoric ascent to dominate the Social Networking landscape.
The chart below plots the average monthly visitor numbers of the UK’s five largest social networking sites throughout last year. The figures are measured in thousands.
(source Nielsen//NetRatings)
From a position of 5th on the grid at the start of the year ended 2007 the clear winner with close to 9million unique monthly users. The only other site to show significant growth over the same period was Bebo. Windows Live Spaces ended the year in a marginally better position than it started it and Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace managed to hold its ground. FriendsReunited was the only Top 5 site, in a buoyant overall market, to actually lose significant numbers of users.
The difference between the fortunes of Facebook and its closest rivals is made even more apparent by this chart, which plots month on month growth in visitor numbers, indexed to December 2006. It clearly shows Facebook increasing its visitor numbers by 900%, which is in stark contrast to the virtual stagnation of its rivals.
(source Nielsen//NetRatings)
Of course, unique visitor numbers are not the only indicator of a site’s success. Venture capital and IPO’s notwithstanding, the cold, hard, commercial light of day eventually dictates that Social Networking sites are in the business of selling eye-balls to advertisers and, in this transaction, it is page impressions which are the primary currency.
The following chart plots the UK’s Top 5 Social Networking sites by monthly page impressions. The figures plotted this time are in millions.
(source Nielsen//NetRatings)
It is interesting to note, that when measured by this metric, the two sites propping up the bottom of the Top 5 are different from before. Faceparty and Hi5, whilst being respectively only the 9th and 11th most popular Social Networking sites in terms of monthly visitor numbers, are very successful at getting their users to engage with site and make it into the Top 5 in terms pure numbers of impressions per month.
Bebo and MySpace both maintain their positions in the Top 5 with Bebo ending up ahead by a narrow margin. However, after starting the year well behind its more established rivals, it is Facebook which had shown the most impressive annual growth and ended up the clear winner, with monthly page impressions peaking in November at 4.24 billion.
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