Laurel Papworth

Number of Australian Twitter users for June 2009 was 800,000, according to ComScore. Australia’s % of overall Twitter traffic & use of apps (not measurable web pages) is at the bottom of this Twitter & Australia post

Found this over at MarketingCharts:

Over 70% of Australian internet users visited a social networking site in June, a 29% rise from the same time last year, reports comScore.

Facebook in particular demonstrated significant growth; Twitter benefited from sudden mainstream popularity in 2009. Nearly nine million Australians visited a social network in June, making it among the more popular content categories online. Facebook led the sector with over 6 million visitors, growing 95% from last year; MySpace — whose social networking star has begun to fall — came in second with 3.5 million visitors, up 5%, MarketingVOX reports.

Windows Live Profile chalked up close to two million visitors, but it was Twitter that grew the most, rising to 800,000 visitors in June — up from 13,000 last year. Orkut also grew substantially: 252,000 visitors, up 607%.

What’s more, social networking use is ubiquitous across the web, composing almost 90% of users that populated Australia’s top internet properties for the month.

”Social networking continues to grow in popularity both across Australia and throughout the world,” stated VP-Asia Pacific Will Hodgman of comScore. “[It] is now an essential part of peoples’ daily online routine, providing a level of engagement and reach that far exceeds most other content categories.”Understanding how to leverage this audience successfully is both a challenge and significant opportunity for most digital marketers today,” Hodgman added.

The study also found that social networkers more heavily frequent popular sites than the Aussie internet populace at large. All told, less than 72% of Australia’s total internet audience visited a socnet in June, but 90% of visitors to the top 20 most popular properties were among the group. And while a mere 14% of the total internet audience can be classified as “heavy social networkers,” about 25% of visitors to the top 20 properties are in this group, comScore said.

A recent eye tracking study by Oneupweb found social network use changes the way people search.

Anyone got the numbers from this time last year? I’m at a conference today, but will have a look later on, maybe do a comparison post. Unless YOU do. In which case I shall go for a walk in the Queensland sunshine this afternoon before heading back home to Sydney.