Social Media Demographics

Source: Flowtown

Although we can distinguish between different social media types and services, this determination still does not give any information with regard to user demographics. However, with regard to its utilization in the corporate context, companies could generate valuable clues from this information as to where specific target groups are active. In the beginning of this year, Flowtown published a survey using Google Ad Planner to determine the social media demographics of the 8 most successful social media networks (Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, and Ning). Although this survey might not be scientifically affirmed, it gives some evidence as to who uses those networks. For instance, it outlines that

• (1) Income: LinkedIn, Reddit and Twitter have the largest proportion of high-incomers, earning more than USD150.000 annually.
• (2) Age: MySpace has a large proportion of young users with 30% below the age of 18, whereas Facebook attracts more and more members of the age of 50.
• (3) Gender: MySpace also has the largest amount of female users, while Reddit has the lowest.
• (4) Education: Many social network users studied at least in college, while LinkedIn contains the largest proportion of highly educated users.

With studies like this, companies can easily determine social network sites to be active in to find potential customers, suitable employees, or to simply provide company information to create brand awareness and corporate reputation.