Should my business use social networks?

Fort Worth Business Press:

If you’ve watched a newscast…you’ve probably heard references to Facebook or Twitter. Social media has received a lot of coverage lately. Many business owners are asking,  “Does my company need to be using social media?”  Before we answer that question, let’s examine exactly what social media is.

Simply put, social media is people having conversations online. That’s it. This happens on thousands of sites every day. People talk about everything from environmental issues to what they ate for lunch. At first glance, it can seem overwhelming, but it can actually add tremendous value to your business and provide a hefty return on investment.

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US Military Using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube

According to a recent NPR article, the US Forces have begun to embrace social media and social networks.  For example, their Twitter page has been used to announce non-combat related deaths and news.  Their Facebook page has a similar purpose, but is also used by friends and family to send messages to their loved ones serving in Afghanistan.

British Taxi Dispatcher Uses Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube to Generate Buzz

NBC has an interesting article about how a taxi dispatcher used social networks like Facebook and YouTube to generate buzz for a movie he had reportedly made for $70.

Also interesting from the article was Iran’s decision to block websites like Facebook, due to the democratic nature of social networks in the midst of the country’s upcoming elections.  God bless America.

Social Networks Demographics

Social Network demographics can be very useful for individuals and businesses that are looking into where to focus their efforts.

MySpace

Although MySpace was not the original social network, I do give it credit for helping make social networks mainstream.

According to OperationRedState, as of May 2009, MySpace had an estimated 64 Million users.  That number is difficult to ignore.

Furthermore, 14% of the users are Hispanic - which I thought was interesting.

Facebook

In January of 2009, Facebook announced that it had exceeded 150 million users worldwide.

Almost 50% of Facebook’s users are in the 18 - 34 age bracket, although the ages that are showing the largest growth is the baby boomers.  For example, as of August 2009, people 55 years of age and older accounted for 25% of Facebook’s growth.

As of October of 2009, Facebook has 300 million users.

YouTube

YouTube gets 81 million views a month in the US alone.  The demographics of YouTube users were surprising similar to that of Facebook.  However, I haven’t heard any reports of a growing number of baby boomer users like Facebook.

An interesting fact about YouTube was that almost 50% of the website’s users did not have a college education, but high schoolers only made up about 20% of that.

Twitter

Twitter has probably seen the fastest amount of growth.  Between March and May, it was reported that Twitter doubled its users, reaching 23 million users.  Also, Twitter’s users seem to be evenly split between household income brackets.

“$0 to 30k : 22%, 30 to 60k : 28%, 60 to 100k : 23%, 100k+ : 27%”

Final Thoughts

The most interesting thing I found about social network demographics is that every site is almost split 50/50 between male and female users.

Another thing that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around yet, is that even though most social networks had a thriving population of users between the ages 18 and 34, most of the websites have not been profitable.  This seems nonsensical since that age range is typically a marketers ideal demographic.  I’m sure with Twitter’s recent 1 Billion dollar valuation and with Facebook finally earning a profit, that we are well on our way to learning how to monetize social networks.

New Zealand Tweets more than United States

According to Scoop.co.nz and Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand uses Twitter more than the United States.  This is surprising, considering how popular Twitter has gotten with businesses and the general public over the past 12 to 18 months.

From the articles:

“…the rising use of Twitter is in line with New Zealand’s growing acceptance of social media as an every day means of communicating both socially, and increasingly, for business reasons too.”

Maybe the United States will increase its use of social media when older people finally realize that social networks are here to stay.

“survey of 1000 New Zealanders aged between 15 and 65 showed 58 percent use Facebook, 18 percent use Bebo, 7 percent use MySpace and 3 percent use LinkedIn. And 88 percent said blogs, streaming video, podcasting and social platforms were here to stay.

The survey also found 83 percent of people used online banking to check balances or pay bills while 72 percent regularly shopped online.”

This just goes to show that social networks are becoming almost as mainstream as shopping online and internet banking.