Social Media Facts and Figures
A recent AdAge article had some very revealing social media facts and figures. The article is very long, so here’s the executive summary.
Today 110 million Americans, or 60% of the online population, use social networks. Users tend to spend a lot of time on social networks. The average social networker goes to social sites five days a week and checks in about four times a day for a total of an hour each day. A super-connected 9% stay logged in all day and are “constantly checking out what’s new.”
Social networkers’ feelings about brands online in general are more positive than the researchers thought they would be. Some 52% of social networkers had friended or become a fan of at least one brand.
Almost half (45%) said they will link only to family and friends, and another 18% will link only to people they’ve met in person. That means almost two-thirds associate only with people they know offline.
Contrary to what some might think, people who spurn social media aren’t tech haters. In fact, they spend as much time as social-media fans surfing the web. But they say they don’t use social media for three basic reasons: They don’t have the time, they don’t think it’s secure or they think it’s stupid. While the first two groups — which the author labels “time-starved” and “concerned” — may be swayed to join eventually, don’t hold out much hope for the last group: 94% said they will never use social media.
About 22% of time-starved people said they’ll be using social media within three months, and another 27% said they probably will within a year — when they get the time that is; they’re more interested than all others in pursuits such as exercise, entertaining, music and movies.
The concerned non-users are an older demographic (one-third are retired) who don’t use social networks because they’re worried about their privacy. However, they do recognize value in social media and may join as they become more comfortable with it.
There are 77 million Facebook users, according to the study. Facebook captures a wider range of users, from high-school and college fun, leisure user to business and parents and grandparents. They are more likely to be married (40%), white (80%) and retired (6%) than users of the other social networks. They have the second-highest average income, at $61,000, and an average of 121 connections.
Facebook users skew a bit older and are more likely to be late adopters of social media. But they are also extremely loyal to the site — 75% claim Facebook is their favorite site, and another 59% say they have increased their use of the site in the past six months.
Twitter users are the super-user group. Twitterers are more interested than the others in many subjects but skew particularly high in all news categories, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion. They’re more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups.
Twitter users are also entrepreneurial. They’re more likely to be employed part-time (16% vs. 11% average), have an average income of $58,000, and average 28 followers and 32 other Twitter users they’re following. They’re not particularly attached to the site, though — 43% said they could live without Twitter.
MySpace users are the young, the fun and the fleeing. While they skew younger, they also said they’d used the site much less in the past six months. The 67 million who are still there are into having a good time. They’re more likely to have joined MySpace for fun and more likely to be interested in entertaining friends, humor and comedy, and video games. They’re less into exercise than any other social group but seek out parenting information more than any other.
The content MySpace users put up is most often about specific hobbies, or pictures of family and friends. Their average income is the lowest, at $44,000, and they have an average of 131 connections. They’re more likely to be black (9%) or Hispanic (7%) than users of the other social sites. They are also more likely to be single (60%) and students (23%).
It’s probably no surprise Linked In users are all about business. LinkedIn has the only user group with more males than females (57% to 43%). They have the highest average income, at $89,000, and are more likely to have joined the site for business or work, citing keeping in touch with business networks, job searching, business development and recruiting as top reasons.
Their interests reflect that as well. They like all kinds of news, employment information, sports and politics. They also more likely to be into the gym, spas, yoga, golf and tennis. Excluding video-game systems, they own more electronic gadgets than the other social networkers, including digital cameras, high-definition TVs, DVRs and Blu-ray players.
The most interesting statistic, only 15% said they go on social networks at work…yeah right!
