February 18, 2010

What social network should you be using to grow your business? It depends on who your customers are.

Compare your target audience with the users of the big three social networks for businesses: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Note: Charts created from Quantcast reports, representing users as zeroed to the Internet average (at an index of 100). The users of all three social networks are split relatively evenly by gender. 

Facebook Users:

·      116 million unique U.S. visitors in December 2009

·      follow the Internet average pretty closely in terms of affluence, education, and household size

·      are slightly more female

·      are mostly younger, aged 13-34

LinkedIn Users:

·      24 million unique U.S. visitors in December 2009

·      are slightly more male

·      mostly have at least a college education

·      ... and an astounding 33% have a graduate degree, as compared to the Internet average of 21%

·      are generally older, more educated, and more affluent

Twitter Users:

·      23 million unique U.S. visitors in December 2009

·      reflect an even male/female ratio

·      peak at the 18-34 age group (16% of its total users, compared to 8% of the total Internet audience), with an even number of older and younger users.

·      are generally less wealthy than those on Facebook and LinkedIn 

By tailoring marketing strategies to account for statistics such as these, small businesses can maximize the effectiveness of their social media efforts and focus on reaching their desired audiences.  In addition, small businesses who want to reach a wide variety of users of all ages, incomes, and education levels can do so conveniently by using all three. 

Join the conversation ( 4 )

• SEAN ELKIN 1 year 10 months and 15 days ago

  

  While I think it is great to look at demographics above, there are two other related trends that I thought would be good to know in the context of this piece and that were presented at the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference by Facebook staff. 1) The highest growing age demo. for Facebook users during the last several months is 35-45 age range (and that is projected to continue for some time) and 2) if you look at growth (in users) between facebook, linkedin and twitter, Facebook growth has eclipsed the others by far (which could be good or bad depending on your business needs and audiences). Facebook launched their ad platform more than 1 year ago and Twitter is about to unleash their ad platform...so be ready!
  
  Sean Elkin
  http://www.searchlightinteractive.com

• Camilo Olea 1 year 12 months and 12 days ago

  

  This article is right on the money. Just recently I had a "Social Media Expert" tell me "you guys need to be on MySpace!" when asked why his reply was "Because its the biggest social network!". Wrong. Twice.
  
  MySpace is not "the biggest social network", and we DONT need to be there. Why? Because of demographics. Our target potential customers are not teenagers or rock groups. Period.
  
  Thanks for this quality info! I'll be using it for clients presentations for sure!
  
  Camilo Olea
  http://www.cancunissafe.com

• Matt Brown 1 year 12 months and 16 days ago

  

  Agree with the OP and article author! Targeting your facebook/Linkedin Ads to the right demographic is the only thing i spend my advertising budget on. The right PPC campaigns will only benefit and doing it wrong is just a waste of money. Informative articles like this is what everyone needs to start reading. The home business industry is booming and there are many ways to advertise.
  
  http://www.my-home-business-growth-marketing.com
  To your success
  Matt Brown

• Konstantin Guericke 1 year 12 months and 19 days ago

  

  Another advantage is that at least for LinkedIn and Facebook, you can target your ads in an even more granular fashion. For example, if your product is designed for marketing executives in companies with over 1,000 employees, on LinkedIn you can run an ad (using simple self-service tools and starting with a small budget) that gets shown to the 30,913 professionals on LinkedIn that are in the marketing function, are at the VP or CxO level and work at companies with over 1,000 employees. Alternatively, you could target the ad by geographic region, age, gender or industry. These are exciting times, and the early movers tend to reap the biggest benefits. https://www.linkedin.com/directads/create