Confession: I am a stats junkie. It’s true. It wasn’t always this way but a few years ago I started wandering through data and since then I have never looked back. There is something propelling about data, especially when given in the form of a statistic. You can take regular numbers and reformat them into a punctuating statistic that people will recall and revisit time and time again.

This morning I read, Five Social Media Marketing Stats That Will Blow Your Mind, and had a very similar moment to the one described above. In that post, Tom Johansmeyer, painted a picture of social media growth through stats that really do in fact blow your mind.

He noted that “54% (112 million out of the 205 million-strong) of the U.S. internet-user population are on Facebook.” Seriously wrap your head around that for a minute. One of every two people online is on one social networking platform. He went on to note that 27% of the U.S. internet-user population is still on Myspace. That is just as mind-blowing to me. As web savvy engagers most of us make fun of Myspace and what it has become. This stat is telling us that 1 in every 4 people online can be found on Myspace. Seriously? Who knew?

What does this mean for job seekers? Well there is an obvious element that can’t be ignored. If you are still haven’t take your job search online and into the social hemisphere you are clearly missing out on millions of opportunities. I am not one to exaggerate but I am still sticking with the phrase “millions of opportunities.” I truly believe that with all of these people engaging on these social platforms, we are finding so many brands and companies represented—ones that may not have even formally joined the social revolution.

In addition to the fact that these stats make a case for moving your job search online, they also help reiterate the need to have a strong and growing digital footprint. Johansmeyer noted that “in the U.S., 25% of all page views came from the top social networking sites and that is up 83% from the 13.8% posted in December 2008.” What can we take from that data?

People are starting searches and finding themselves on social networks. Even more so they are continuing through social networks looking for data, using information from them as they would information from a dictionary. People see social networks as a destination for valuable information these days. The growth of this stat shows that we will only see this trend continue to rise as social networks continue to expand in functionality and purpose.

So why bother putting time into your digital footprint? Hiring managers, company leaders, and people looking for consultants are all part of this searching user base. They have needs to fill and before where they  might have landed on a page with Google ads of resume postings, they now find themselves landing on LinkedIn pages, Facebook groups, and Twitter streams. The question is will any of those pages be yours?

These stats remind us that although the world seems to be focused on social media as the latest marketing trend, it is and always will be—another way for people to discover information. For job seekers social media is a valuable tool to find companies and be found by companies. Unless you are stoked to be unemployed, I just can’t come up with any excuse not to be involved in the social web revolution. Not a single one.