I came across a fascinating report on the demographics of social network users. Rapleaf ooked at user profiles and demographcs for the major social networking sites (MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5 ) as well as for Facebook. The data is fascinating.
Summary Numbers
- The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between MySpace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use MySpace.
- Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male
- 52% of Facebook users are 18-25, whereas 40% of the users are 18-25 for the five container sites on the OpenSocial platform
- Facebook users tend to use 2.9 major social networking sites on average whereas users of OpenSocial container sites tend to use 2.7 major social networking sites
Interesting that this data shows that Facebook demographic skews female and under 25, compared to other major social networks. That is important information to know if you are building a Facebook application.
Social Network Specific Data
Facebook Users
- 2.6 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 17% <18 yrs, 52% 18-25 yrs, 21% 26-35 yrs, 5% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 2.9 major social networking sites used on average
- 62% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 10% are on Plaxo, 22% are on Hi5
MySpace Users
- 11.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 20% <18 yrs, 40% 18-25 yrs, 27% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.4 major social networking sites used on average
- 15% are on Facebook, 2% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 6% are on Plaxo, 17% are on Hi5
LinkedIn Users
- 0.8 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 38% female, 61% male
- 2% <18 yrs, 9% 18-25 yrs, 49% 26-35 yrs, 24% 36-45 yrs, 16% >45 yrs
- 3.2 major social networking sites used on average
- 16% are on Facebook, 25% are on MySpace, 12% are on Friendster, 16% are on Plaxo, 8% are on Hi5
Friendster Users
- 2.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 58% female, 41% male
- 12% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 36% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 3.0 major social networking sites used on average
- 10% are on Facebook, 44% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 5% are on Plaxo, 26% are on Hi5
Plaxo Users
- 1.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 62% female, 37% male
- 16% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 24% 26-35 yrs, 10% 36-45 yrs, 11% >45 yrs
- 3.6 major social networking sites used on average
- 20% are on Facebook, 53% are on MySpace, 11% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 15% are on Hi5
Hi5 Users
- 4.5 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 60% female, 39% male
- 21% <18 yrs, 44% 18-25 yrs, 23% 26-35 yrs, 6% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.8 major social networking sites used on average
- 13% are on Facebook, 43% are on MySpace, 2% are on LinkedIn, 13% are on Friendster, 2% are on Plaxo
What I am amazed at is the number of people from the other social networks that use Hi5 (http://www.hi5.com). This is a social network that rarely gets any press, but for marketers it might be cheaper and easier to market on Hi5.com compared to Facebook or MySpace and still reach a lot of the same people.
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This is great data and we agree with the Hi5 aspect – we barely see press about them so we’re impressed with the number of people who use it — it’s more internationally popular as opposed to popular within the US.
What I would like to know is: what is the difference in using a social media site like my space or facebook between male and female users. Can anyone enlight me on this? Is there a difference and what is it?
This is great info, but I have to question some of those stats. Only .8 million LinkedIn users? LinkedIn claims to have over 25 million on their site. That’s too big a disconnect to just say estimates may vary. Do you have any additional insight on why so great a difference?
Quantcast shows 5.4M U.S. visitors to LinkedIn Rich. That is still a long way from the 25 million users that they claim to have.
The difference is probably active users. LinkedIn might have 25 million people who signed up, but probably less than 6 million of them are active users (visit the site every month)
Waao,,, Interesting data,,,
I clicked on the link and this was from Nov 2007. Jeremiah Owyang has a collection of social media stats that is more recent. Includes some demographic links too.
Love what you’re doing here. Great food-for-thought research. What would be interesting to learn, is the profit margin of these sites.
Thanks, I found this a useful start for a research project I am working on. Just one thing that jumped out to me as I was trying to compare companies across the social networking industry and noticed that according to this information, among facebook users, “62% are on MySpace,” but among myspace users only “15% are on Facebook.” How can this be? That is a big gap. Your intro does seem to indicate that there were separate sources for these two company’s info, but even if that is the case I wonder how reliable they can both be given this discrepancy.