Wow!
Social networking site Facebook achieved its highest-ever U.S. traffic day on Christmas Eve, according to market research firm Hitwise. Traffic to Facebook jumped 41% from the same day in 2007 and accounted for 2.2% of all US Internet visits. MySpace and Yahoo Mail also saw spikes in traffic on Christmas Day or Eve, according to the research firm.
The trend is pretty standard: Bored users log on to avoid relatives or send digital greetings.
But this year it got an extra boost from something else: bad weather. The evidence is in the demographic data, says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Hitwise. Typically, Facebook’s traffic is heaviest on the West Coast. But for the four weeks ended Dec. 27, Hitwise noted that New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia drove the greatest share of visits to Facebook – cities that were hit by heavy snow storms.
Perhaps advertisers will take notice and intensify their marketing efforts during foul weather.
For more on weather-triggered advertising and and influence of weather on internet traffic see:
Photo courtesy of BeFitt
