According to Compete Inc, web measurements show that Facebook has surpassed Google to become the major source of directing web traffic. And just yesterday, numbers released by Nielsen revealed Facebook to be the online destination where people spend most of their time. That in itself is not as surprising as the amount of time people spend on Facebook compared to other websites. According to Nielsen, the average U.S. Internet user spends more hours on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo!, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Amazon COMBINED. And the average amount of time spent on Facebook is still showing rapid growth.
The question is: What does this mean for online marketing?
In the past, online content creators had to focus on search engine optimization to ensure that their websites could easily be found amongst top search results. Now, however, they must focus on social media marketing in addition to traditional search, because people now make use of multiple channels for finding information.
We’re seeing the beginning of a major shift in the way in which people consume and interact with information. People are spending more time browsing based on the websites that their friends have recommended - this is a phenomenon known as “Friendcasting”.
Even Google is taking steps to move into the social-media world. Just a few steps they are taking in this direction include their acquisition of YouTube, their real-time search results (which includes data from Twitter, Yahoo Answers, and MySpace.), their somewhat failed attempt at Google Wave, the recent launch of Google Buzz, and their recent acquisition of Aardvark (a social search that allows people to answer each other’s questions).
