There are some great figures in this report from Nielsen looking at social media’s growing popularity and how it connects people with just about everything they watch and buy.

It provides insights into how powerful this in?uence is on consumer behaviour both online and off. Interestingly far more people follow brands than follow celebrities. Is that surprising?

Perhaps not at all when you consider that the value of the growing amount of time that consumers spend online, on social networks and blogs, is most visible through the in?uence on their purchase decisions as consumers start to combine a number of different digital experiences before making any choice about a brand.

Key findings

1. Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans time online and now account for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the internet

2. Social media has grown rapidly — today nearly 4 in 5 active internet users visit social networks and blogs

3. Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other US website

4. Close to 40% of social media users access social media content from their social media phone

5. Social networking apps are the the third most popular among US smartphone owners.

6. 53% of active adult social network users follow a brand

7. 32% of active adult social network users follows a celebrity

You can download this as a PDF from Nielsen here.