Understanding Social Networking Demographics

Each Social media website develops its own community and its own demographic profile. With the ever changing world of social media, it can be hard to determine which social media community would be the most effective place to market your company.

With one in four online American adults visit social networking sites at least monthly, it is hard to ignore this rapidly emerging trend.

For marketers new to the Social Marketing world, here is a brief description of five of the major social networks out there and their community demographics.

LinkedIn is an online community geared towards working professionals. With over 20 million users, LinkedIn has become the primary hub for networking with colleagues, finding potential clients, discovering new business opportunities, and finding jobs in your field.

Your LinkedIn profile can serve as a resume for employers, a way to market your product and services to potential customers, a networking tool connecting with people in your area or industry, a portfolio outlining your experience and accomplishments and much more…

Statistics:

· 22 million active users

· Open to all ages

· Traffic by Region: 61% US, 5.5% India, 5.0% UK, 3.4% China, 2.8% Germany (Alexa)

· 7.9 million visits per month

· The average LinkedIn user is 39 and makes $139,000 a year (BusinessWeek)

· 76% have at least a 4-year degree

· 46% male, 54% Female

· 300,000+ recruiters (JobMachine.net)

· All Fortune 500 companies have executives that are members of LinkedIn (USA Today)

· More than 1.4 million members who self-identify as senior executives (USA Today)

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Statistics:

· 70 million registered users

· 20 million active users

· Popular Worldwide

· Traffic by region: 40% US, 9.5% UK, 6.8 Canada, 3.3% Turkey, 2.9% S. Africa (Alexa)

· Open to people 13 and older

· Average Time On Site: 14:00 minutes (Compete)

· 6th most-trafficked website in the world (ComScore)

· 2^nd most-trafficked social networking website

· 1.1 billion visits per month

· More than half of Facebook users are outside of college

· The fastest growing demographic is those 25 and older

· More than 65 billion page views per month

· Active users doubling every 6 months

· Over 55,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks

Source: Facebook

MySpace is by far the largest of the social networks on the web. MySpace is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.

Statistics:

· 110 million registered users

· Open to people 14 and older

· Popular Worldwide

· Traffic by Region: 66% US, 4% UK, 3.5% Germany, 2.4% Mexico (Alexa)

· 2.5 billion visits per month

· Average Time on Site: 26:00 minutes (Compete)

· 85% of MySpace users are 18 or older

· On average 300,000 new people sign up to MySpace every day

· 41% of MySpace users are in the 35-54 age bracket (ComScore)

Registered users have the ability to create new social networks with no technical skills and in very little time. The features of Ning are very similar to MySpace and Facebook, allowing you to read news, learn about related events, join groups, read and comment on entries, and view and add photos/videos.

Ning has two different options for users, one allows users to create a network for free, in exchange for the network hosting ads that Ning supplies. The other, their “Ning for Business” option, offers users a network where they control the ad content, in exchange for a monthly fee.

Statistics:

· Dominate age bracket is 18-34

· Open to all ages

· 220,000 active networks

· Traffic by Region: 51% US, 4.5% Malaysia, 4.3 UK, 3.5 Germany, 3.2 India (Alexa)

Bebo is a social network where members can stay in touch with their College friends, connect with friends, share photos, discover new interests and just hang out. Bebo was acquired by AOL on March 13, 2008.

Statistics:

· General, Popular in the US, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands

· Traffic by Region: 44% UK, 15% US, 10% Ireland, 7.5 Australia (Alexa)

· 40 million registered users

· Open to people 13 and older

Other social networks to consider:

· Gather

· Twitter

· FriendFeed

· Orkut

· Hi5