Social Media Demographics
Back at the Avvocating conference one of the speakers showed an example of a lawyer with a profile on MySpace, which works well because this lawyer specializes in marijuana law. The speaker noted that other practice areas probably wouldn’t be a good fit for MySpace.
If you’re familiar with MySpace, you understand this intuitively. But what about people who aren’t? Could a misguided social media rube end up doing the online equivalent of crashing a party full of pot-smoking teenagers?
(Picture credit: Royal Pingdom)
Below is a list of popular social media sites that shows dominant demographic groups for each (in terms of age, education, income and gender). You’ll also find each dominant group’s percentage share so you can tell just how dominant it is. Monthly traffic is listed as well to give you an idea of size. The list is arranged by dominant age, oldest first. Hopefully this will serve as a rough guide to the different “flavors” of social media sites. You might be surprised by some of the stats (I know I was).
Classmates.com
Dominant age: 45-54 (31%)
Dominant education: Some College (48%)
Dominant income: $50,000-$74,999 (38%)
Dominant gender: Female (66%)
Monthly visitors: 19 million
Dominant age: 35-54 (56%)
Dominant education: Bachelor’s degree (37%)
Dominant income: $50,000-$74,999 (24%)
Dominant gender: 50/50 split
Monthly visitors: 82 million
Dominant age: 45-54 (25%)
Dominant education: Some college (40%)
Dominant income: $50,000-$74,999 (34%)
Dominant gender: Female (60%)
Monthly visitors: 132 million
Delicious.com
Dominant age: 35-44 (32%)
Dominant education: Some college (46%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (31%)
Dominant gender: Female (55%)
Monthly visitors: 1.2 million
Stumbleupon.com
Dominant age: 35-44 (28%)
Dominant education: Some college (53%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (33%)
Dominant gender: Female (52%)
Monthly visitors: 4.9 million
Dominant age: 35-44 (27%)
Dominant education: Some college (49%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (31%)
Dominant gender: Female (60%)
Monthly visitors: 21.2 million
Digg.com
Dominant age: 35-44 (28%)
Dominant education: Some college (42%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$74,000 (52%)
Dominant gender: Male (57%)
Monthly visitors: 38.5 million
Reddit.com
Dominant age: 25-34 (29%)
Dominant education: Some college (42%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (27%)
Dominant gender: Male (64%)
Monthly visitors: 3.9 million
Bebo.com
Dominant age: 0-17 (43%)
Dominant education: Less than HS diploma (41%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (46%)
Dominant gender: Female (66%)
Monthly visitors: 1.6 million
MySpace
Dominant age: 0-17 (34%)
Dominant education: Some college (44%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (39%)
Dominant gender: Female (66%)
Monthly visitors: 47.5 million
Friendster.com
Dominant age: 0-17 (26%)
Dominant education: Some college (44%)
Dominant income: $25,000-$49,999 (36%)
Dominant gender: Female (60%)
Monthly visitors: 831 thousand
The above data all comes from Google Ad Planner (except visitor stats, which are from Compete), so if you’re wondering about a site that’s not listed, check it out. You’ll need to sign in with your Google account to see the demographic data.
