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Facebook plugins most used, Google +1 button passes Twitter buttons

BrightEdge has released its July 2011 report comparing the adoption of links and plugins for social networks offered by Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, has released a report on the links from social networks to the top 10,000 websites and their adoption of social sharing plugins. The findings, which compared data from June 2011 and July 2011, show that Facebook and Twitter are both doing very well. Facebook has a clear edge though, while Google already shows signs of being able to seriously compete.

In terms of the overall number of links out to the various social sites, Facebook leads the way with 47.4 percent of the top 10,000 websites including a link to Facebook directly on their homepage. Twitter has 41.8 percent, YouTube has 16.75 percent, and LinkedIn has 3.7 percent. As you can see, neither of the social websites showed much change between the two months compared:

The adoption of social plugins is meanwhile much lower. Facebook offers four plugins: Facebook Like button (10.8 percent), Facebook Like box (6.1 percent), Facebook Connect (1.9 percent), and Facebook Recommendations (1.2 percent). It's not too much of a shocker that Facebook is dominating this scene. Not only does the social network offer the most options, but it has been offering plugins for much longer than its competitors.

What is surprising, however, is that the Google +1 button (4.5 percent) is already ahead of the Twitter Tweet button (2.1 percent) and the Twitter Follow button (1.3 percent). That means Google is already in second place:

The report notes that while Facebook enjoys a two-to-one lead in plugin placement on these large sites, the majority of brands today are still missing out on the massive traffic and engagement driver Facebook has become. Links to Facebook pages only appear on the front page of less than half of the Web's largest websites. BrightEdge calls this an untapped opportunity for social platforms on websites operated by some of the most clever marketers and executives in the world.

"Overall, this inaugural version of our SocialShare Site Analysis shows huge opportunity for brands to engage more socially," BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu said in a statement. "Fewer than half the largest sites on the Web offer any kind of social link at all on their front page and these sites represent a massive slice of Internet traffic on any given day. We would expect to see a land grab effort this year as plugins vie for placement on this very valuable Web real estate."

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