But social networking extends far beyond Facebook and across the globe the social networking space is competitively contended by platforms like the Chinese Renren, formerly Xiaonei, now counting 160 million active users and Orkut which dominates in Brazil and India boasts 100 million users. In spite of geographical variations in
popularity of one specific network over another, social networking’s common thread is rapid growth. Another feature that social networking shares the world over is the interest shown by businesses in not merely using these platforms as media on which to passively post banner advertising, but as a channel with which to interact with potential and existing customers. Twitter can already boast 175 million users and 95 million tweets a day. Since social plug-ins launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day. In February 2010 1.6 million Facebook pages belonged to local businesses highlighting how pervasive the phenomenon is.3 In France one in four social networking users is reported to like or be a fan of a brand and this rises to one in three users in the UK.

In the USA social networks have now overtaken even search engines as the most visited websites and over half of adults visit a social networking site every day. Facebook reports that there are now 250 million users who access the network through their mobile phones.6 In its 2010 Social Networking report, Experian Simmons found that 68% of USA users had shown support for a product, service or company by becoming ‘fans’ or ‘friends’ of a page or group and 57% had ‘liked’ a product, service, company or group.”