Facebook losing visitor share to Twitter and Youtube

As one news site put it: ‘Losing face’.

Hitwise monitor and keep track of visitors to the popular social networks within the UK and as such the data that has recently been released shows that Facebook may have quite possibly peaked. Or is it just that Twitter is becoming more popular?

In the words of Hitwise research director Robin Goad: “It has been a pretty extraordinary month for Twitter, with more visits coming to the website than ever before,” and “Twitter has carved a niche for itself as an excellent platform through which Internet users can share and consume news.”

[FONT=Arial]”As the micro-blogging platform becomes more mainstream marketers need to be able to monitor what is being said about their brand and how they can engage with this ever increasing audience online. Twitter is no longer purely in the domain of early-adopters; rather it is becoming a mainstream tool which is being used increasingly by all types of Internet users, regardless of their online preferences.”[/FONT]

It must be noted that at this point in time Twitter – even after a good month (May) has only a 3.2% share of the social market compared to Facebook’s 53%. However, this won’t take into account all the people accessing the site from their desktop or mobile clients (as it doesn’t access the main ‘website’). The main thing to keep an eye on now is whether Facebook’s decline persists or whether they are able to hold themselves steady.

Youtube, as expected, due to being owned by Google, is going from strength to strength with a very large 20% share of the market. Below is the figures taken directly from Hitwise.