Despite being a country known for our magnificent open lands and exotic wildlife, Australians are instead staying indoors and stalking their mates on social networking sites.

Australians spent an average of 6 hours and 25 minutes each on social media in February 2010, and has been ranked the second highest consumers of social media in a study carried out by The Nielsen Company across ten countries. While Italians led the race, Australia came up second over the United States, the United Kingdom and even technology-obsessed Japan. It is also to no surprise that Facebook has emerged as the most popular social networking site.

The amount of time Australian consumers spend online has seen local marketers put more attention in reaching their target audience digitally. “Marketers in Australia are aware of the raft of advantages and benefits associated with utilising social media in targeting and reaching specific audience segments. The difficulty for many lies in tying social media to existing marketing strategies,” says Richard Allely, chief executive officer of PMP Limited.

PMP are holding a conference, Schmart Marketing on the subject.