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A couple of recent reports by Comscore and Ipsos MRBI into social media usage in Ireland have been recently released (links to sources at the end). They provide the most up to date look at the reach and use of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, from an Irish perspective.

Update 1 (7/3/11): Facebook section with information from the National 50+ Consumer Survey.

Update 2 (9/3/11): Twitter & Linked In sections with information from Barry Hand’s blog, link at end of the post.

Update 3 (14/3/11): Irish Facebook mobile users .

Social Networking in Ireland

84.2% of all Irish Internet users used social networks in December 2010. This is up 8.1% on December 2009 (Comscore)

The average Irish person spends 18 hours and 7 minutes online each month (Comscore)

Facebook

77% of all Irish internet users use Facebook (Comscore)

That average Irish person spends 4hours 10 minutes on Facebook per month, well ahead of competitors Google sites (2hrs 51mins), Microsoft sites (1hr 36mins) and RTE.ie (22 mins). (Comscore)

According to Ipsos MRBI, 1.75 million or 50% of the entire Irish population, over the age of 15 years, use Facebook. 175,000 new Irish users joined the site in the last six months.

Facebook’s own figures estimate there are 1,865,000 Irish accounts on the social network.

90% of those aged 15 – 24 years use Facebook, and two thirds of those use it every day. (Ipsos MRBI)

20% of those aged 55 – 64 years use Facebook, and 35% of those check their account daily. (Ipsos MRBI)

(Update 1) Four in ten over 50s use the internet. Of this group the top three visited websites are  Google (38%), Facebook (19%) and Ryanair (13pc).

Of this same over 50’s group 80% have an email account, 37pc have a Skype account; 29pc are on Facebook, and 2pc have a blog. (Amárach)

(Update 3) According to Facebook the number of Irish people accessing the network from their mobile has increased to 800k (via). This is up from around 500k from last summer.

Twitter

245,000 people over the age of 15 have a Twitter account. That’s 7% of the total population. (Ipsos MRBI)

According to Ipsos MRBI, this figure is static with little to no growth in the last 6 months. However the numbers who check their Twitter account daily have risen considerably from 18% to 30%. (Ipsos MRBI)

(Update 2) Using Google Ad Planner and Google Trends, Barry Hand estimates a 20% growth in Twitter users since early 2010. He also estimates 6.8% of the population use the Twitter.

In the post, linked below, Barry estimates active users on Twitter to be in the region of 180,000.

Linked In

In August 2010 4% of the entire Irish population were using Linked In. (Ipsos MRBI)

This figure increased to 9% of the Irish population by February 2011, pushing it ahead of Twitter in the number of users.  (Ipsos MRBI)

(Update 2) Barry Hand suggests a 20% growth in Linked In users since November 2010. Based on a traffic analysis 33% of accounts are active on a monthly basis.

According to Linked In’s own figures there are almost 420,000 Irish accounts on the network.

Social Networking Continues to Grow

The most staggering figure presented here is that 9 out of every 10 people aged 15 to 24 years use Facebook. It underlines just how dominant that network is amongst the teenage and early twenties age group, and how much they rely on it for connecting with friends. This age group has probably neared saturation point and future Facebook growth in Ireland will come from older age groups. The average Irish user is just under 30 years of age so growth will more than likely come from the 35+ age group.

While Facebook is the out and out leading social network in Ireland, both Twitter and Linked In are continuing to grow. While Twitter has not increased in numbers, those who do use it, are using it more frequently. Perhaps this points to more people ‘getting it’ as a source of news and information, rather than just a social network to connect with friends. If the Ipsos MRBI fugures are accurate Linked In now has a greater reach than Twitter, although how often and for how long people log into either, I assume, will be very different. Twitter is something that is better to dip in and out of over the course of the day, while Linked In is something that would be checked less frequently but, perhaps, for longer.

What does bode well for both the smaller networks is the potential for growth as the saturated Facebook audience get older and their tastes and needs diverge. This younger audience (the 15-24 year olds) have grown up with social networking. Once they leave college and begin to look for careers, Linked In will be perfectly positioned for this well connected audience. So too will Twitter be as they seek to be better informed and to connect with their peer’s and industry colleagues.

Sources: Comscore, Ipsos MRBI, Facebook, Linked In, Amárach, Barry Hand.