It should come as absolutely no surprise but a new eMarketer report has discovered that Canadians are really into social media – almost as much as we’re into double-doubles (aka coffee with two sugars and two creams), hockey, Justin Bieber, maple syrup and hockey.

eMarketer expects by year-end about 15.1 million online users in Canada will have visited social networking sites at least once a month, an 11% increase from from 13.6 million in 2009. By 2014, 18.4 million Canadians are expected to visit social media, boosting penetration to 68% from 59%.

It’s no surprise Facebook is, by far, the most popular social media service with 9.6 million unique visitors a month but a surprising runner-up is Windows Live is 543,000 visitors, while Twitter is third with 344,000. Given there are more than three million Canadians registered with Twitter, I would have thought the service would have more traffic.

While the Canadian population is enthusiastic about social media, the same can’t be said for Canadian companies, who are continuing to take a fairly cautious and measured approach. This includes major consumer-facing companies such as Canadian Tire and Loblaw that should be all over social media but have stayed on the sidelines.

When I created ME Consulting in January 2009, I didn’t set myself up as a social media consultant because there did not seem to be enough corporate activity to generate business. The landscape started to change about a year ago as a growing number of companies started to explore social media.

As a result, 2010 has seen a healthy amount of corporate activity but I wouldn’t describe it as a wave or flurry. My take is corporate Canada is probably two or three years behind the U.S. Some of it has to do with the fact Canada tends to lag behind the U.S for most online trends even though we have high Internet penetration rates.

And I think part of it has to do with the fact many senior executives aren’t into or using social media so pulling the trigger on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a blog can be a difficult strategic proposition even though it makes complete sense.

Below, you’ll find two charts from eMarketer. The first shows social media penetration rates, which seem low given Canada’s has the eight-largest Facebook population in the world, the fourth largest Twitter population and the highest penetration (68%) for YouTube. As well, it is puzzling to to DeviantArt and Classmates.com in the top-10 – neither one I would consider a social network. And what the heck is Skyrock, a service that I’ve never heard about before.