I’ve been making a habit of posting the U.S. traffic data for the “big 3″ social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – the ones that seem to matter most to sourcers and recruiters) on a monthly basis.

Last month, I predicted that all 3 of the sites would experience a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors, and as it turns out, I was right only about 1 of them.

And I was quite surprised to see which one it was.

Facebook Unique U.S. Visitors Declines for First Time in a LONG Time

Amid all of the recent press Facebook has been getting for crossing the 300M user mark and finally becoming cash flow positive, I haven’t come across anyone who’s pointing out that Facebook’s monthly unique U.S. visitors actually dropped in August. So, I’ll step up and be “that guy.”

Facebook’s unique U.S. visitors has been on a tear upwards over the past 12 months – and I can’t recall the last time (if there WAS a time) when Facebook’s visitors has declined. I don’t have premium access to www.compete.com, otherwise I could tell you definitively if Facebook’s monthly visitor count has declined in the past 24 months. Does anyone have access to Facebook’s unique visitor data for the past 2-5 years? If so – please share!

Okay, so exactly how much of a decline did Facebook experience? Well, Facebook’s unique U.S. visitors only dropped by .37%, or 456,197 visitors from July to August. Admittedly, that’s a VERY small drop. However, it’s a drop nonetheless, and I personally find it odd that it’s dropped at all while Facebook is at the same time passing the 300M user mark.

Perhaps Facebook is growing more on a global basis, adding a higher volume and percentage of non-U.S. users? Perhaps more people in the U.S. are creating Facebook accounts, but are not returning on a monthly basis? I don’t have the answer, but I do know that although the total number of U.S visitors shrank slightly in August – those visitors actually visited more often: total U.S. visits to Facebook in August rose 4.69% to 2,202,528,780. 

In any event, regardless of how small a decline it may be, I find it newsworthy (and interesting) that Facebook’s monthly unique U.S. visitors declined in August, for the first time in a long time, and in the same time frame that Facebook crossed the 300M user mark.

LinkedIn U.S. Visitors Surge in August

LinkedIn’s monthly unique U.S. visitors climbed past the 14M mark for the first time ever in August, up 8.19%, or 1,077,955 visitors. While LinkedIn’s U.S. visitor traffic has cooled significantly this year, declining from January to February, and from March to May, LinkedIn has been on a bit of a upwards tear from June onward.

Not only did the number of unqiue U.S. visitors to LinkedIn increase in August, those visitors also visited more – with visits climbing 9.94% to 53,593,375 visits. It’s nice to see LinkedIn on the rise again after experiencing some choppiness earlier in the year.

Twitter Gains Visitors, Declines in Total Visits

If any one of the “big 3″ social media sites were to experience a visitor decline in August, I would have placed my money on it being Twitter. However, Twitter managed to thwart a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors, growing by 1.27%, or 294,649 visitors. But all that glitters is not gold for Twitter, as they experienced a decrease in total visits in August by 2.99%. This is noteworthy, because it is the first such decline in total monthly visits for Twitter in 2009, with the last decline happening in November, 2008.

Still, Twitter logged 148, 651, 794 total visits in August, which isn’t too shabby considering that many Twitter users don’t actually visit Twitter at all, instead accessing Twitter through 3rd party applications such as TweetDeck and Seesmic.

Final Thoughts

I’m always interested in the traffic for the “Big Three” social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn), and I discovered today that  www.compete.com just released July’s data. 

And here it is!

Facebook

While Facebook’s been on a tear of growth as it passed the 250M member mark, Facebook only added 117,142 unique U.S. visitors in July 2009 . That seems like a large number – but with how large Facebook has grown to,  that’s only 0.1%, which is the lowest growth rate Facebook’s posted in the last 12 months.

Could we see a drop in August?

We cannot overlook, however, that Facebook saw 2,103,776,022 visits July. Yes, 2.1 Billion – which is nearly an 11% increase from the 1,898,910,472 visits logged to Facebook from the U.S. in June. So while monthly unique visitors has stagnated, those who are visiting are visiting more. 

Twitter

After experiencing a decent 16.57% spurt of growth in June, Twitter slowed significantly in July, growing unique monthly U.S. visitors only by 1.25% to 23,284,395. Similarly, visits to Twitter grew only 1.54% to 153,227,857.  We’ve seen this kind of plateau before with Twitter from April to May before unique visitors jumped in June. It will be interesting to see what happens in August.

LinkedIn

In July, LinkedIn experienced a second month of growth in a row following 2 straight months of decreasing monthly unique U.S. visitors in April and May, growing 5.77% to 13,163,696 from June to July. However, visits to LinkedIn dropped slightly in July by -1.26% to 48,748,204.

With around 22M total U.S. profiles, 13.2 unique U.S. visitors in July means that approximtely 60% of all U.S. LinkedIn members actually visited the site in July.

An intriguing feature of Compete.com is that it will display top search terms for the sites you are researching. When digging into LinkedIn’s data, I noticed this:

Someone’s definitely trying to fish some MDM/data quality professionals out of LinkedIn via an X-Ray search! You go – whoever you are!

The “Big Three”

Here’s a graph of the 6 month unique U.S. visitor data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook:

August should be an interesting month. With the significant cooling of monthly unique visitors for the Big 3 social media sites in July, I’ll go with a bold prediction of a decline in monthly unique U.S. visitors across them all. 

I will continue to monitor the traffic data for the “Big Three” and share it with you – please share this information with others. Thanks!

I routinely check www.compete.com for the latest traffic data for my favorite social media sites and was pleasantly surprised to find June’s data has been released. I will review the June traffic data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook (aka, the “Big Three”).

Twitter

Twitter experienced explosive growth from February 2009 to April 2009, going from 7.9M to 19.4M unique U.S. visitors before leveling off around 19.5M visitors between April and May. However, after that brief cooling period, Twitter has experienced another spurt of growth, adding approximately 3.2M unique U.S. visitors (16.57%) to hit an all time high of 23M unique U.S. visitors in June. Okay, 22,997,148 to be exact.

Those ~23M visitors hit www.twitter.com 150,752,603 times in June, which is a 12.05% increase.

Twitter 6 Month Compete.com Traffic

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s experienced a bit more of a rocky path than Twitter has over the past 6 months, with unique U.S. visitors decreasing from January to February and from March to May. In June, however, LinkedIn’s number of unique U.S. visitors grew 6.07% from 11.73M to 12.45M visitors, who logged 48,371,121 visits.

LinkedIn 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

Facebook

I’ve been seeing Tweets referencing how Facebook had crossed the 250M member mark and was curious to see their traffic data. It’s no surprise to see them continue to grow, which they did by 8.45% in terms of adding nearly 10M unique U.S. visitors from May to June, for a total of 122,559,672 visitors. A truly staggering number comes in the form of the 1,898,910,472 visits logged to Facebook in June. Yep – almost 2 Billion visits to Facebook from the U.S. alone!

Facebook 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

The “Big Three”

Here’s a graph of the 6 month unique U.S. visitor data for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook:

Twitter LinkedIn Facebook 6 Month Compete.com Traffic Data

Of note is Twitter passing LinkedIn in terms of unique visitors betwwen February and March of 2009, but the real standout on the chart is just how many more people in the U.S. visit Facebook over LinkedIn and Twitter. Yes, I know they are 3 totally different types of social media/networking sites – but the size of the chasm is quite dramatic, and Facebook does not show any signs of slowing down any time soon.

I will continue to monitor the traffic data for the “Big Three” and share it with you – please share this information with others. Thanks!