The popularity of social media is undeniable – three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equates to 22 percent of all time online or one in every four and half minutes. For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

’nuff said…

“Old people” on Facebook: They couldn’t beat it, so they joined it.

But why? And how did they hear about social media in the first place? They can’t all be simply stalking their younger relatives, can they?

A new study from the AARP — that’s the American Association of Retired Persons — shows that baby boomers in the 50-years-old-or-better age bracket are cool with the Internet (), down with Facebook, hip to the iPad and not just using the web to spy on their kids and grandkids.

The AARP spent some time last month interviewing 1,360 adults over the phone. They found that more than a quarter (27%) of Americans age 50 and older use social networks. Facebook is the most popular — in fact, 23% of all survey respondents said they preferred it to sites such as MySpace (), LinkedIn () and Twitter. Another study earlier this year from eMarketer showed that boomers and seniors were flocking to Facebook, again showing a strong preference for this site over Twitter and MySpace — all this in spite of the fact that another survey showed older Americans reported hearing an awful lot of bad news and media coverage about Facebook.

When it comes to general web surfing, 49% of respondents between the ages of 50 and 64 and 40% of all adults age 50 and older, said they consider themselves extremely or very comfortable using the Internet. In other words, we’re very close to seeing the majority of senior citizens embracing the web as a content medium and communication tool.

Lots of companies — more every day, it seems — want to have Facebook “fan” pages, where customers or would-be customers can connect with them and become part of their online community. But what are those fans actually worth to a company? Everyone has their own views on that question, but now a social media measurement firm called Syncapse has come up with an actual dollar value in a report released today (PDF link). The answer? An average fan is apparently worth about $136.38, although for some very successful social marketers the value can be dramatically higher, while for some less successful companies it can be virtually zero.

Syncapse came up with the figure by asking 4,000 fans of 20 of the top brands on Facebook — including Nokia, BlackBerry, Victoria’s Secret, Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and McDonald’s — why they were fans of those companies or brands, and about their past and future purchasing behavior. Syncapse then tried to estimate what the value of each fan’s spending would be to a company, as well as the value of continuing to have that fan as a customer over time.

The key findings of the report are likely to come as music to the ears of advertisers that have been pursuing a Facebook-based social media strategy. According to the survey:

• On average, fans spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves as fans of, compared to those who are not fans.
• Fans are 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.
• Fans are 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.

That probably helps to explain why, according to recent statement by the company, the number of advertisers working with Facebook has doubled in the past year.