A Look at Social Media Activity
We have a Business Week diagram in our Considering Social Media for Your Organization seminar that everyone keeps asking me for - so here it is. The data shouldn't be considered gospel (I'm pretty sure it's the same Forrester data everyone uses for this, so it's from 2006, and only describes "online consumers", whatever that might mean) but it provides a really useful talking aid for thinking about what folks are doing with social media across age ranges.
The difference between younger and older folks is just amazing, for instance. As per this data, 60-70% of folks over 50 weren't doing anything with social media, including reading it. But 70% of folks 18-21 years old - an incredibly high number to be doing anything -were using social networking sites. 30% of folks 22-26 years old were *creating* content online, as opposed to less than 7% of folks over 50.
View in an actually legible format, on the Business Week site.
The difference between younger and older folks is just amazing, for instance. As per this data, 60-70% of folks over 50 weren't doing anything with social media, including reading it. But 70% of folks 18-21 years old - an incredibly high number to be doing anything -were using social networking sites. 30% of folks 22-26 years old were *creating* content online, as opposed to less than 7% of folks over 50.
View in an actually legible format, on the Business Week site.
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5 Comments:
My anecdotal report is that 2006 is probably an age ago and this is changing rapidly. I've had at least ten over-50 friends (well, peers) connect with me on Facebook in the last week or two. They're showing up in droves, which actually is creating a kind of online identity crisis for me, as I used to be safely surrounded by just my nptech friends.
I also really wonder what social networking sites they looked at - MySpace and Facebook trend younger than LinkedIn, certainly, but LinkedIn is a social network by anyone's definition.
So I agree that 2006 is a long time ago, but I certainly wouldn't jump to say that the age differential is evening itself out, especially without any data. I would expect that the percentage of 50+ folks using social networks has risen - but I don't think anyone would say it's anything like 70%. I also think it's likely that the percentage of youngsters using them has also risen.
I think the gap is useful to consider, even when the data isn't as current as we might like.
Actually, the framework is still very valid to understand online social behavior. To make decisions re: strictly demographics was probably never valid in the first place. You have to drill down into other research available specifically for the social network or other site. And, then secondary research only goes to far - you have to do a form of action research - which is called "listening."
The chart is broken in terms of sites and some definitions - where does Twitter?
Also, in my experience listening - there is cross over in behaviors too ...
Nonetheless, as a conceptual framework for online social behavior - there isn't else comparable.
And, if you've read the groundswell book and keep up their ongoing research -- then you get additional insights.
I expect that "use social media" is a pretty loose description that might only expose willingness and capacity. The 100K question probably has more to do with "how does my nonprofit turn that activity into dollars, volunteers, or action"
Laura, your intuition is correct, from the data I've seen. http://business.rapleaf.com/company_press_2008_06_18.html is from this past summer, but it shows the huge dropoff in social networking usage. Linkedin and Flickr are less concentrated with the young folks. This conforms to my bias: it isn't about tech-savviness or age, it is about "free time." Social networking evangelists hate to hear it, but it seems born out by my anecdotal experince and the data.
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