Older users becoming dominant on Facebook
8th July 2009, 01:08 am by Matt Rhodes
- Image via Wikipedia
The biggest group on Facebook are not university or college students, or even people in their 20s in their first job. According to analysis by iStrategyLabs, the biggest group of users on Facebook are 35-54 year olds. Their study of figures for the US that are publicly available to advertisers shows that over 28% of Facebook users are in this age-range, with a further 12% of users aged 55 or over. In fact the 55+ age-group is the one that has seen the largest growth in the six month to July 2009 – an impressive 514% increase in users.
So Facebook users are starting to get older. The social network that started with 18 year old students at college and university has now grown up – its users are now more reflective of the population and indeed are much older than a few years ago.
This development shows that Facebook is starting to reflect the overall Internet population and is, indeed, putting the end to such misconceptions as that social media and social networks in particular are for “young people”. This just isn’t true. At FreshNetworks, we run online communities for diverse groups – from women with an average age of 40+, to younger communities of people in their 20s. If there is a bias in terms of who is online and participating in social media, it certainly isn’t age.
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8 July 2009, 8:04 amTwitted by JustinGriggs:
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8 July 2009, 8:20 amAngela Connor:
Interesting, Matt. I wonder if the younger demographic is annoyed by this at all or if various demos are simply able to exist in whatever Facebook silos they create?
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8 July 2009, 10:05 pmMarigo Raftopoulos:
Grouping and judging people by age group is marketing naivety at its best. It shows lack of real insight and understanding of people and therefore markets and opportunities. How many times do marketers need to learn this lesson?
9 July 2009, 1:36 amLisa W:
It’s a tad misleading to say 35-54 year olds are the largest group on Facebook, given that the age ranges are not consistent: if you look at 18-34 year olds, they still make up 50.3% of users (and that’s STILL a narrower age band than the sweeping 35-54 year olds).
Given that the older groups are growing off a smaller base, it makes sense that their growth rates are so much stronger as well.
I think what’s most impressive is the 25-34 year band grew by 61% across the period from an already strong base.
9 July 2009, 3:39 amCharlie Osmond:
Good point Lisa,
The headline is misleading.
I think the main point still carries through – any assumption that Facebook is for “the young” is unfounded. But giving the stats in this way feels a little disingenuous.
The annoying thing is that for 3 years, this is how all facebook age related stats have been researched and reported.
*Marigo – Thank you for the comment. I agree in part. For many products age is not a meaningful segmentation variable. I guess it’s prominance, even when less meaningful, comes from being highly actionable. As a result it does often deserve recognition when planning media spend.
Charlie
9 July 2009, 4:50 pmBarbara Ling, Virtual Coach:
It seems that many of my compatriots (I’m in my 40s) are more vocal than my other connections (20-somethings from my dojo). It doesn’t surprise me.
10 July 2009, 3:43 pmFootprints (10.07.09) | Chris Deary:
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19 July 2009, 5:42 am