I came across this interesting chart from Michael Brito this morning that shows the demographic breakdown of Twitter users by age.
Interestingly the fastest growing segment on Twitter (other than bots) is among people 24 and younger accelerated faster than older folks in 2009, according to comScore.
Unlike most social networks, Twitter started out being more popular with adults, before it caught on with younger users. Last year that changed as celebrity tweets caught on, and mainstream media started talking about the service more. Read more...(160 words, 2 images, estimated 38 secs reading time)
If your target demographic is college students, there is no better way to reach this group that through Facebook.
According to the “American College Students Survey” Facebook is not only the overwhelming favorite social networking site (SNS) among college students; it may rapidly become the only SNS that matters, according to research by Anderson Analytics.
Among seven leading social networking sites ranked by college students in the Anderson Analytics 2009-2010 GenX2Z American College Student Survey conducted this fall, Facebook was viewed as “cool” by a whopping 82% of males and 90% of females. All other SNS’ were deemed “lame” by significant percentages of both male and female collegiate users. In particular, MySpace–the granddaddy of SNS’–was considered “lame” by the largest portion of college students (31%). Read more...(339 words, 2 images, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)
A new report from LinkedIn Research Network and Harris Interactive paints a worrisome picture for Twitter. While the research found that 83% of advertisers were familiar with Twitter (and you have to question who the other 17% are!), only 8% of advertisers and consumers think it is a “very effective” promotion tool.
In addition to the 8% of advertisers who said Twitter was very effective for promotion, 50% said it was somewhat effective. More than three in 10 (34%) said it was not very effective and 8% felt it was not effective at all. Read more...(225 words, 2 images, estimated 54 secs reading time)
A common mistake that many advertisers make is that they think that all social networks are the same. That the ad campaign they have for Facebook will work on MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The problem with that approach is that social networkers utilize these sites in different ways depending on their age. So one blanket campaign across the different networks is not effective.
For example, according to Anderson Analytics, Generation Z (13-to-14-year-old) social network users were more likely to use MySpace than Facebook. Only 9% of them used Twitter and none used LinkedIn. Read more...(167 words, 2 images, estimated 40 secs reading time)
Within the same report there was some very interesting data about Twitter users and why they use that social network site. Almost half of all users (41.6%) are using Twitter for that purpose while 29.1% used it to update their status, 25.8% to find news and stay updated, 21.7% for work purposes and 9.4% for research.
If so many people are using Twitter (and Facebook to some extent) to keep in contact with friends and family, that might explain why so many companies are struggling to make money using Twitter.
There is a new study out called the “Consumer Internet Barometer” that has some very interesting insights about Twitter, Facebook and who uses social networks. Throughout the week I will be highlighting several of the points that the Consumer Internet Barometer found.
One interesting demographic point was that nearly one-half of females visited social networking sites, compared with 37.6% of men. And that more than 70% of Internet users under age 35 browsed social networks.
More bad news for MySpace as Facebook finally passed it last month to become the most popular US social networking site. According to comScore, Facebook totaled 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace audience shrank 5% over the same timeframe, falling to 70,255,000 unique visitors.
Obviously Twitter has seen some tremendous growth in the last 12 months, but I find it interesting that the 5th and 6th biggest social networking sites are MyLife.com and Windows Live Profile! Also, Bebo (an AOL purchase) is slowly making inroads into the U.S. market I would expect to see them continue to grow market share. Read more...(306 words, 4 images, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)
A couple of months ago I wrote about the Graying of Facebook and how that more than 50% of Facebook’s users in the U.S. are over 35; the single biggest age demographic in the U.S. on Facebook is now between 35 and 44, and that Facebook’s fastest growing demo is 55-plus.
So I was shocked to see an article in MediaPost that referenced some data from Insidefacebook.com that said that during April and May, the number of U.S. Facebook users over 55 actually dropped by 650,000 after increasing by 1.6 million the prior two months. Read more...(189 words, 3 images, estimated 45 secs reading time)
Interesting data from TV Week that shows that while YouTube remains the No. 1 online video site, Hulu continues to see exponential growth.
Hulu is the fastest-growing site among Nielsen Online’s top 10 video brand sites, which include YouTube, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media, Nickelodeon Kids & Family Network, MSN/Windows Live, ABC.com, MTV Networks Music and Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital.
YouTube delivered 5.5 billion total streams in April, while Hulu increased 490% from 63.2 million streams in April 2008 to hit 373.3 million in April ’09.
Jon Gibs, vice president of media and analytics for Nielsen Online, attributed Hulu’s growth to “a good interface and excellent, aggressive marketing campaign.” Read more...(348 words, 1 image, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)
As I have written about many times this year, twitter is the incredible hot at the moment. Everyone from your local coffee shop to Oprah is on Twitter and Twitter’s growth is skyrocketing.
eMarketer estimates there will be over 12 million Twitter users in the US in 2009, slightly more than twice last year’s number.
But figures released by Nielsen Online suggest that Twitter’s retention rate is only 40%. In other words, as David Martin wrote on the Nielsen blog:Read more...(345 words, 3 images, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)
