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.
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.
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.
Over the past 2 years Jim MacMillan, a Pulitzer Prize Winning photojournalist, has gained quite a following by blogging, sharing his photos, and using social networks such as Twitter. In that short amount of time, he has gained over 14,000 followers on Twitter and stays connected with almost 500 people on Facebook.
This type of marketing is amazing considering the organic nature of what Jim has done compared with how much money businesses are spending on social networks. For instance,
The reason for the shift in organic marketing is probably due to:
…entertainment used to be watching TV or buying movie tickets…That shift is a desire to connect with the artist and to support [him or her] directly.
By being connected with the brand personally, consumers often become evangilists for the brand, just like friends and family members support each other. With over 200 million users on a social network, the numbers add up quickly and reciprocation can be amazing.
Social Media Marketing differs from traditional marketing, in that, instead of being targeted by marketers, consumers want to interact with marketers. Below is a collection of excepts to help businesses get started with social media and social marketing. Stay tuned for more tips!
Nowadays, everybody is talking about Social Media Marketing (SMM) and how great it is for promoting a business. The truth is, most people are really confused about SMM, and they feel very frustrated because they want to take advantage of it but just don’t know how. The goal of this article is to help those people plan and execute a successful SMM campaign.
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Give Before You Take. Share your expertise, help others, post articles and answer questions. Don’t start asking for business on day one. Social networking is for building relationships and trust.
Be Active. Spend 15 minutes every day building your network, posting comments and contacting other community members. If you aren’t noticed in your community, you might as well not be there.
Share Your Knowledge. If you are one of those people who wants to join social networks to benefit from what others know, but you’re not willing to be generous and share your own knowledge, you will never be successful at SMM. When you start sharing what you know, people open up to you. That’s when you start building valuable relationships. If you are always giving, people will want to reciprocate.
It is obvious businesses are getting comfortable using social networks to promote their brands. However, companies are still trying to figure out which social networks to use and how to use them.
According to Abrams Research 32% of “media leaders” say that they would pay for Facebook, given the choice of purchasing a single social network. However, when asked which social network you should pay for, Twitter beats Facebook at 39%.
Microsoft recently showed off the cool things that could be done with the new Facebook API’s “Open Stream” technology. Although there is no way for us to try the new technology yet, according to the article, “…Microsoft will be releasing an SDK and the source code for both of the apps in the near future.”
From the article:
Earlier this week Facebook made the landmark (and long-awaited) announcement that it was going to enable the “Open Stream“, granting developers far more access and flexibility to Facebook data than they had before. To commemorate the event, Facebook held a special Technology Tasting at its Palo Alto office, where it gave everyone an idea of exactly what developers could do with the new data.
Social Networks are getting more users and traffic than ever before. What’s more is that people trust the influence of their friends and family over being “sold” on a product through a traditional advertisement. This shift creates enormous opportunity for businesses as they learn better ways to promote their brands through social interaction.
From the article:
Marketers know the biggest influence on what people buy is recommendations from family and friends — and that circle has got larger thanks to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, which connect individuals with similar interests worldwide.
The “buzz” they generate is about personalities, activities, events, careers and commodities, and that definitely includes what people like to experience, see, use, wear, and taste. No small wonder, businesses are tapping into this medium to promote their products and services.
