Merging of Traditional Media, SEM and Social Marketing
Social networks are not the domain of the young. According to a May 2010 Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, 47% of 50-to-64-year-old internet users and 26% of seniors ages 65 and up indicate that they now use social networking sites.
So why are older Internet users flocking to social sites like Facebook? Well the Pew Study offered three reasons for social networking’s appeal to older adults:
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.
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.
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.
Last week I blogged about the “Consumer Internet Barometer” study and what it showed Social Networks Demographics.
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.
