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Most Popular Social Networks

By
Mortgage and Lending with Fitzgerald Financial, a Division of Monarch Bank

From the Desk of Bob Caldwell

What are the most popular social networks?

There are two ways that both websites and social networks are ranked in terms of popularity. The first standard of measure is the amount of active users per month; Facebook has somewhere between an estimated 800 million to 1 billion members use the site per month. This makes it the second most popular website on the internet, with Google beating it out--barely--with slightly north of 1 billion users per month worldwide.

That fails to tell the whole story, however. It was reported earlier in the year that roughly 1 in 5 minutes spent on the internet, collectively, is spent on Facebook. Google, on the other hand, despite having services that are popular like YouTube, Google+, Google Docs, and most notably, GMail, not to mention the Android operating system and the Chrome Browser, is still used by the majority of people for search only. And that does not add up anywhere near to the amount of time people spend, again collectively, on Facebook. So the second way websites and social networks are ranked is by the amount of time its members spend on the site. This is much more important to advertisers and people using these services because it gives a much better idea of how and where to attract customers.

I was surprised, however, when I read this ZDNet article which shows that, yes, Facebook is the most popular social network by far--but the next two, both tied, were Tumblr. and the relatively new Pinterest. Tumblr. is a blogging service that, simply put, allow you to write blogs longer than Twitter "Tweets," but not quite as long as the majority of the blogs on a service like ActiveRain, WordPress, or Blogger. Pinterest has gotten a lot of attention recently for growing extremely fast in membership and being extremely popular with females.

So my question of the day is does anybody currently use either Tumblr. or Pinterest for business? If so, what benefits do you believe either one (or both) of these services offer over the other? Pinterest seems like it could be a great tool for real estate agents, but as a mortgage banker myself, I'm not sure if I could benefit business wise from it.

Anyway, knowledge is power and that chart, originally from the Wall Street Journal, certainly helps any of us using the internet for marketing.

Copyright 2012 Bob Caldwell, NMLS# 188544

Comments (3)

Bruce Hicks
Best Homes Hawaii - Honolulu, HI
Your Best Hawaii Realtor!

Hi Bob, I have yet to make income from Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, Linkedin or Google+ or even Active Rain for that matter.  For Facebook, it only made my wife a game junkie.

Mar 05, 2012 02:21 PM
Al Raymondi
Ocean View Realty Group in Ormond By The Sea Florida - Ormond Beach, FL
Ormond By The Sea Florida - Home and Condo Sales

Nice post Bob, I am not using either of the two but will be interested to see any feedback you get about them.

Mar 05, 2012 09:18 PM
Paul McFadden
Responsive Pest Control - Seattle, WA
Pest Control, Seattle, WA.

Bob: Thanks! I for one have lessened how much time I spend on social networks. I think it's easy to get carried away! Take care.

Mar 09, 2012 04:41 AM