Internet Marketing and Social Media Consultants

Nielsen released their latest round of social network traffic updates, this for the month of April. While LinkedIn is exploding in growth, the Facebook doubters have been given fresh ammunition in their belief reality is closing in on Zuckerberg and company.

First, about LinkedIn: the business-centered social network has experienced a 360% increase in traffic since one year ago. These statistics will certainly do a lot to help LinkedIn raise a round of venture capital, as they are shooting for a $1 billion valuation based primarily on the upscale audience LinkedIn attracts. The average LinkedIn user is 41 years old and makes $110,000 per month, allowing them to charge advertisers an unheard of $75 per thousand impressions. Combining that upscale audience with big growth will go a long way into getting the kind of money they want.

Facebook, on the other hand, had a 10% decline in traffic from March to April. The declines they were experiencing earlier this year were written off by some as a seasonal blip, but there are fewer excuses for this latest decline (although comScore has their traffic virtually unchanged month-to-month). Year to year growth is still extremely strong for Facebook, with their traffic being 56% higher than at this time last year. A leveling off was to be expected, in all likelihood, and this report doesn’t take into account foreign visitors, a group Facebook is working hard to attract.

MySpace is still the king, but year to year growth is only up 3%. Still, Facebook user base and traffic is still well below half of what MySpace is at.

Thanks to Caroline McCarthy at The Social for the story.

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