Social Networking: Examining User Behavior

Results from a recent iProspect study outline the specific behaviors of users visiting the most popular social networking sites. Among other items, the study finds that marketers should spend more time and resources investing in sites that operate within a relevant niche to their product than they have in the past.

According to the study, more people visit the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) much more frequently than the most popular social networking sites. With that being said, marketers shouldn’t be looking to abandon their ranking efforts in paid and organic search anytime soon.

Still, social networking users are growing at an accelerated rate. One in four Internet users visits a social site at least once a month, and that figure only looks to increase over the next several years. The Internet is shifting from a medium of information to one of participation, and iProspect suggests that marketers follow that trend and encourage consumer participation in their marketing efforts.

One of the more interesting points in the findings, however, is the notion of vertical marketing. Sure, MySpace has the sheer numbers, but chances are that you will actually be more successful by placing your product into a smaller group of users that are actually passionate about the particular niche.

Here’s what iProspect had to say about the vertical aspect of