The Nielsen Online research guys have just come up with some very interesting data on the growth of social media.Last year 67% of online users visited social media sites which makes those sites more popular than personal email.

Anybody with a college age kid will be painfully familiar with Facebook, but in 2008 it went mainstream with 30% of online users visiting it at least once per month. The social space appears to be maturing; the parents of the early adopters are getting in on the act, the fastest growing sector is the 35-49 group. The trend appears to be global with strong growth across Europe, many Asian countries such as South Korea have been heavy users for many years.

Figuring out how we can plug into this rapid growth to help drive customers for local businesses is firmly on our agenda and we’ll keep you posted on these initiatives as they progress.

Meantime even an old dog like me can learn new tricks, and (if you really want to) you can follow me on Twitter or swing by www.timjudd.com.

You can read the full Nielsen report here