While many marketers have flocked to social media as a panacea for their economic ills, most people who are online spend the majority of their time at content-rich sites, according to a recent study from the Online Publishers Association. 

The study of online activity, called the "Internet Activity Index," breaks Web sites into five different categories: content, communications, community, commerce and search. 

Content sites are Web sites like NYTimes.com that have information that one can acquire by visiting the site. 

The study found that Internet users spend most of their time on these sites and that the time spent on these sites in 2009 (42 percent) has grown 24 percent since 2003. 

While there weren't enough Community type sites (Facebook, MySpace) to be statistically relevant in 2003, the percentage of time spent on those sites was 13 percent in 2009 - less than a third of that spent on content sites. 

Communications sites (e-mail, IM) saw a drastic reduction of 41 percent in share of time, from 46 percent to 27 percent. One reason for this could be the emergence of community sites and the ability to communicate within these sites as opposed to leaving a site to e-mail or message a fellow community member. 

Commerce sites such as eBay and Amazon also saw a reduction in percentage of share of time, going from 16 percent to 13 percent. Search almost doubled in share of time, but the total is only 5 percent in 2009. 

The bottom line? If you are looking to communicate with your target market, content is still the way to go. While search and social media are important factors in the marketing mix, it is important to establish and maintain a presence in traditional and online content media.