Content providers triumph over social sites!

The explosion of social media has been great for growing the online community but time spent on content rich sites still dominates!

Even in our age of communication, which is everywhere all the time, people still of course, need the content which is communicated, to be real, relevant, interesting, useful and be acted upon! Great website design has to mean quality content too! From the site branding message to product/services information, newsletters, blogs, article downloads and outbound links.

In other words – and you’ve been told this to death – content is king, or, to put it more forcefully, omnipotent! It simply isn’t good enough for a website to be no more than a basic sales vessel – tested for SEO – but without content usability!

According to a recent online publishing survey, ‘content sites’ continue to command the majority of attention of internet users – from a total time spent of 34% in 2003, now up to 42% in 2009 – a 24% increase!
The percentage of time spent online with ‘content’ websites providing news, information and entertainment has grown despite the overwhelming popularity of sites like Facebook.

Following a six year analysis gauging time spent with commerce, communications, community, content searches each month, it was discovered that internet users are spending significant time with community sites, i.e. social media – rather than with communication sites whose main functions are email and instant messaging. Their 41% decline in the share of online time spent is because we now have the ability to conduct these activities more efficiently elsewhere

The emergence of Social Media and the development of online communities means consumers are significantly changing the way they spend their time online. This has caught the attention of businesses and is influencing their approach to online marketing strategies.

Whilst time spent on ‘community’ sites has grown, data from the survey proves that seeking out ‘content’ is predominantly the main activity and chief interest. It is ‘fresh content rich’ sites that continue to be places where visitors spend the majority of their online time. Most importantly, they provide a compelling environment, to which, businesses can attract visitors, e.g. by email marketing and develop significant CRM to increase sales conversion opportunities.