Thursday 22nd April 2010

StumbleUpon second globally to Facebook and leads in US

Boston, US and Dublin, Ireland, Thursday, 22nd April, 2010: Twitter generates almost one in ten Social Media global hits to websites according to web analytics firm, StatCounter. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that Facebook is the primary source of traffic to global websites with almost half (48%) of Social Media hits followed by StumbleUpon with almost a quarter (25%).

The data for March is based on 13 billion page views across the global StatCounter network of member sites. StatCounter, which provides free website traffic information, has recently added Social Media to its StatCounter Global Stats, a free online research tool for media, analysts, bloggers, researchers and members. StatCounter Global Stats monitors Internet market share battles including Search Engines, Browsers, Operating Systems including mobile and now Social Media.

"From a business perspective the findings suggest that there is merit in having a corporate Facebook page or Twitter account ," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.

"The surprise packet is StumbleUpon, which over the past year has been consistently in the top two Social Media sites in terms of generating global website traffic. Indeed, in the US in March StumbleUpon was number one ahead of Facebook in terms of website traffic generation."

The top Social Media sites to generate global website traffic after Facebook, StumbleUpon and Twitter are YouTube (6%), reddit (4%), Digg (2%) and MySpace (2%).

Mr Cullen added, "Social Media market share fluctuates a lot more than browser or search statistics. For example, Facebook peaked over Christmas and the New Year with almost three quarters of the total, perhaps reflecting its important role in communications between families and friends."

He also noted that professional Social Media site LinkedIn was ranked at 12 with 0.34%. "This does not reflect its importance as a business site as it is not directly comparable to the more consumer focused sites."

Ends

Press queries to: Kerri Crowley, Simpson Financial & Technology PR
T: +353 1 260 5300 or E: kerri@simpsonftpr.ie

Note: Data includes 25 of the main Social Media sites but excludes the recently launched Google Buzz.

About StatCounter Global Stats

For individual country analysis go to:
https://gs.statcounter.com/#social_media-ww-monthly-200903-201003

Further information on our analysis is available at:
https://gs.statcounter.com/faq

About StatCounter

StatCounter, a free online visitor stats tool, was founded in 1999. It offers its members the chance to grow and improve their online businesses by allowing them to monitor the number of hits to their website; the geographical location of visitors; the various pages a visitor views; keywords used to find the site plus other features. For information on this real-time, user-friendly, and free visitor stats tool, please visit www.statcounter.com.