The global time spent per person on various social networking sites has now reached five and a half hours per month, this is from the Nielsen Company and Facebook accounts for the majority of that time. This is up two hours from last years numbers. Nielsen measured the social network usage per person within 10 different countries ad compared it the data from the same time last year.

Italy tops the chars with just under six and a half hours per month of social network site surfing at (6:27:53 per month). Australia was right behind them with (6:02:34 hours per month. The United States ranked third in the study spending just over six hours per month at (6:02:34 per month) surfing social networks.

Facebook with is 400+ million users is far and away dominating the competition in social network surfing. Facebook being the number one social network in the world accounts for just under six hours of social network usage per person at (5:52:00 per month per person). I interesting point is that Facebook usage is 5 hours more per month per user than it’s closest competitor is MySpace with (0:59:33 per month per user).

Facebook is dominating the competition, for local businesses this is an important factor because it is a prime opportunity to get your business in front of local users. With the ability to run Facebook ads that are very hyperlocal focused, you can focus on potential new customers within a geographical region that would be customers of your business. No more wasted money on global internet marketing, you have can look next door for your next customer.

We are looking forward to 2011 numbers and seeing the growing amount of time spent on social network sites, I bet you it will just give every small business more reason to get online and be involved with Facebook.