Fascinating statistics from ComScore, that baffles the general assumption that social networks are for teenagers.
Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively. Meanwhile, Xanga.com has a younger user profile, with 20 percent of its users in the 12-17 age range, about twice as high as that age segment’s representation within the total Internet audience. Not surprisingly, Facebook.com, which began as a social networking site for college students, also draws a younger audience. More than one-third (34 percent) of visitors to Facebook.com are 18-24 years old, approximately three times the representation of that age segment in the general Internet population.
Source ComScore
Why do we care? We care because the impact of social networking, and the consumer trends it supports what we talked of here earlier today which built on James post. Trends such as markets as conversations, consumer advocacy, brand value discounting, unmarketing. These are societal shifts that impact banks and everyone.
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Demographic Profile of Visitors to Select Social Networking Sites: August 2006: US |
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Percent (%) Composition of Unique Visitors |
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|
Total Internet |
MySpace.com |
Facebook.com |
Friendster.com |
Xanga.com |
|
|
Unique Visitors (000) |
173,407 |
55,778 |
14,782 |
1,043 |
8,066 |
|
Total Audience |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Persons: 12-17 |
9.6 |
11.9 |
14.0 |
10.6 |
20.3 |
|
Persons: 18-24 |
11.3 |
18.1 |
34.0 |
15.6 |
15.5 |
|
Persons: 25-34 |
14.5 |
16.7 |
8.6 |
28.2 |
11.0 |
|
Persons: 35-54 |
38.5 |
40.6 |
33.5 |
34.5 |
35.6 |
|
Persons: 55+ |
18.0 |
11.0 |
7.6 |
8.1 |
7.3 |
Bankwatch 
I’m very surprised by those stats. It’s almost unbelievable. So we had an internal discussion ’round here where we wondered about the metrics. Was data measured via a survey or was it collected from each IP address? In essence, how accurate was the data collection process at telling the actual age of the visitor? And how many of those “visitors” were registered users? And how many MySpace users really tell the truth about their age?
Also, how important is a unique visit – especially compared to a registered user?
When it comes to registered accounts, MySpace is claimed to have topped the 100 million mark (of course that’s incredibly inflated by inactive/fake accounts – some estimates say less than 50 million active accounts exist on MySpace).
I certainly don’t feel that social networks are just for teenagers. But my gut is saying that the regular users of MySpace are overwhelmingly Lower Gen X and younger.
Just a thought…
ps. Good call on this design, Colin!
Excellent point about the nature of the research and the source of the data. Many women on MySpace have the age 99 for their own reasons.
PS .. Thanks re design