Facebook traffic shows huge increase

MySpace may have social networking cornered, but other social networking platforms are gaining ground on the giant. According to new research from Hitwise, Facebook has shown more than 100% traffic increase since September 2006.

by Kristina Knight

According to the report, MySpace still accounts for roughly 79% of social networking traffic. However, since the fall of 2006 when Facebook opened to all Internet users, the site has shown a traffic increase of 106%!

"Opening up to the entire Internet audience had a positive effect for Facebook," said LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise. "Clickstream data indicate that users at other social networking sites may be experimenting with Facebook as an alternative site, which may help it attain critical mass among non-collegiate users."

Year over year (April 2006 to April 2007), the platform has shown 126% traffic increase.

Social newcomer Bebo.com has also shown amazing growth of 184% YoY.

So, are users leaving MySpace? Apparently not. MySpace accounts for roughly 24% of the traffic that hits social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Imeem. What this means is that social networkers are not satisfied with using only one platform. As more social networks open for business, users seem to latch on to the new spaces as a way to meet even more people.

Online marketers can take advantage of this trend by creating branded business pages on the different social networks, advertising within the different networking platforms and offering user-generated reviews within their social sites.