Knowing who is spending the most time on different social media networks is important for marketers. While Twitter and Facebook may be the most popular platforms – are your customers actually on it?
Surprisingly, while Facebook was very popular for students in middle school and high school when it first became popular in 2005, it isn’t nearly as popular for that age group anymore. It seems like nearly all adults have a Facebook account and use it pretty regularly, while the younger generations might have accounts but don’t tend to use them very much.
Recent statistics posit that Facebook has approximately 1.79 active monthly users, 1.18 billion of whom log in daily. And Pew Research found that a whopping 71% of online adults use Facebook. As this social platform has gotten more popular, older adults have started to use it as well – some use the network to keep track of their kids, while others use it to reconnect with friends from high school and college.
A 2014 study found that the growth of Facebook users 13-17 is actually declining by 25.3%, while the growth of Facebook users 55+ is growing by 80.4%. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use Facebook if your audience is teens, but it demonstrates that demographics are constantly changing. It is always good to have a Facebook page–but if your main audience is teens, consider concentrating on other social networks like Tumblr or Instagram which tend to be more popular with a younger audience.
Facebook Stats:
- 1.79 billion people use Facebook.
- 58% of the entire U.S. adult population uses Facebook.
- 87% of 18 to 29-year-olds who use the Internet are on Facebook.
- 72% of U.S. Internet Users with incomes above $75,000 use Facebook (compared to 17% on Twitter, and 13% on Pinterest).
- More women are on Facebook than men.
- Nearly 75% of U.S. Internet users who have had at least some college education use Facebook.
Twitter is not as popular as Facebook, but it is easily the second most popular, with 232 million active monthly users. It may not have nearly as many users as Facebook, but it is a very popular platform for celebrities and news sharing – users generally go on Facebook to connect with friends or family, while Twitter is more for keeping up with celebrities and breaking news.
In 2012, 83% of users reported seeing news on Twitter. Unlike some social media platforms, there isn’t a gender disparity in Twitter usage. Twitter is most popular among adults 18-29-years-old. Among users 55-64, the demographic has grown 79% since 2012.
What does this mean? Twitter is a diverse network used by all kinds of people. Any business or person can benefit from using Twitter, but it is important to know where your audience is.
Twitter Stats:
- Twitter has 117 million monthly active tweeting users, and 45 million daily active tweeting users.
- There is no real trend with education or household income in Twitter users. Suburban (18%) and urban (19%) are equally likely to use Twitter.