Jul 09
9
Facebook Demographics
Facebook usage is continuing to grow while the users are simultaneously growing up. Facebook’s college roots go back to 2003 and in February 2009 a Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network in the world by monthly active users. In other words, Facebook is the current big boy on campus in the social media world.
Here in the summer of 2009, InsideFacebook.com has reported a shift in the demographics of Facebook users, reflecting a slight decrease in student use and a continued increase in usage by their parents.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
While users 18-25 are still the largest age group on Facebook by far, college-age students and recent college grads are easing up on Facebook over the summer. Why? Now that most students are out of school and busy working, they may just have less time to keep up with friends than they do during the school year.
However, as you can see, the number of US Facebook users over 35 grew significantly in the last 30 days, up by nearly 1.5 million in each of the 35-44, 45-54, and 55-65 categories. In fact, the number of US Facebook users 45-54 has more than tripled in the last 6 months, to a record 7.7 million active users today.
Check out the following graph for a more detailed look at the current Facebook demographics.
♦ 18-25 year-olds still represent the largest slice of the pie at 30%
♦ 26-34 year-olds represent the next biggest chunk at 24%
What is also telling is that users over 26 years old now represent 60% of the total US Facebook population: That’s hardly the age of college students. Which also means that the majority of Facebook users fit in some favorable demographic for the majority of marketers.
