Just a year or two ago, it was common to see "emerging media" as an alternative buzzword for social media. At the time, it made sense. Facebook was still skyrocketing in popularity, and new social networks were popping up every week.
But now that 2012 is here, it's safe to say that social media is no longer "emerging" and has fully arrived. And while some analysts claim the social media phenomenon is just a bubble waiting to burst, new Facebook statistics from TechCrunch show that the growth may have slowed, but it hasn't stopped.
According to their numbers from comScore, Facebook had 15 million new visitors in 2011 compared to almost 50 million in 2010. This highlights the fact that social media is now in a gradual growth stage, and not the exponentially fast growth stage it had been for years.
An article in ReadWriteWeb dove into this a little deeper, gleaning that the statistical focus will shift from the number of users on various sites to the engagement on those sites. "How much time?" will replace "how many users?" as investors, speculators and pundits look to see who's dominating our online lives.
The main reason for this is that social media across the board, especially Facebook, has more or less reached a saturation point. Echoing many people's complaints when Google+ first hit the scene, most users don't want to add to the long list of channels to keep track of. They are set in their social networking ways, and are now looking for new apps and devices to supplement those social networks.
For marketers, this means we have to move beyond where people are at and start looking at how they are using those social media channels. Regardless, it's good to see that social media continues to become more and more integrated into our daily lives.
