Open doors

As Google+ opened its doors to sign-ups without invitations in recent days, Australian visitation to the site increased 1269% (according to Experian Hitwise). Whilst this figure is impressive, average time spent on the site almost halved, indicating that new visitors are ‘checking out’ the site but not necessarily engaging and building community.

Opportunity

As covered yesterday by SMK’s Dan Kuseta, the Google+ advertising opportunities proposed for brands, in tandem with Google’s understanding of visitor behaviour and preferences, are significant. However sustained meaningful uptake of Google+ will need to be established before advertising on the platform is justified.

Facebook reigns

Meanwhile, recent figures released by Experian indicate that Facebook retains market share in the Australian social media space, despite dropping slightly month on month against last year’s figures (51.81% for August 2011, against 56.9% August 2010).

On average, Australians visit Facebook 26 times per month, spending 11.5hours per month on the site. There were 465,270,133 visits to Facebook from Australia in August 2011.

The rest

YouTube tripled their market share and saw a 400% increase in uptake of tablet and smartphone use. Predictably, Myspace saw their market share dive 75% over the past year. Nonetheless, their meager share equates to over 4million visits per month.

Time will tell

With Facebook redecorating like a newly-wed and Google+ only really beginning to flex its muscles, it’s hard to predict who will retain or attain market share in the coming years.

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Twitter role:

Featured: Experian Hitwise: @Hitwise_AP, Facebook: @facebook,  Myspace: @myspace, Twitter: @twitter , YouTube: @youtube

Article by: Lou Pardi: @loupardi, @smkapac