Significant Social Media Demographics to Consider for Your 2015 Strategy

Melany Bartholow | @MktgMelany Here are some surprising social media demographics you can use in planning your 2015 Social Media Strategy.

  • Facebook still skews young, but that is changing as the older demographic is growing quickly. Grandma is getting on Facebook! Higher-income households are also getting on board. A huge share of Facebook's audience is international and have annual incomes of over $75K.
  • Twitter has a surprisingly young user population for a large social network, and in terms of household income, Twitter is fairly equally represented across income brackets. It is the most-used social site for teens. It skews more male; 22 percent of men use Twitter versus 15 percent of women, and most users get their news from the site.
  • YouTube reaches more adults from 18–24 than any single cable TV network. One of every five people get their news from YouTube. It is very international as only three of 10 users are in the U.S.
  • LinkedIn is not so much a social network as a professional network and is for the older, more educated, more professional and affluent users with an average income of $150K. In fact 41 percent of millionaires use LinkedIn and 80 percent are over 30 years old. Users are an even ratio of men to women at fifty-fifty.
  • Instagram: Instagram's youthful user base is growing quickly, especially since Facebook acquired it and because of cool new features like sharing Instagram images on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr accounts. Also with the new Instagram Direct feature, which allows you to post to a small private group (like SnapChat), Instagram will keep growing. Users tend to be female teens and young adults; 90 percent of users are under 35 and 30 percent are 18–29.
  • Google+ is the most male-oriented of the major social networks with 71 percent being males and about 28 years old. As technically-oriented early adopters, Google+ users tend to be engineers, designers or in IT and spend about seven minutes per month on the social site. So your content has to stand out and be interesting and engaging — albeit there is far less social media competition on this platform.
  • Pinterest is dominated by tablet users (48 percent on iPads), and skews heavily toward higher-income women. It is a great platform to showcase photo-rich brands.
  • Tumblr is strong with teens and young adults interested in self-expression and has a very loyal following, but it's not especially popular with those in higher-income brackets. About 50 percent are between 16–24 years old.
  • Snapchat is the youngest social network of all. One-third of Americans aged 18–34 use this app and 60 percent of the users are 18–24.

No data can be 100 percent accurate, especially on subjective questionnaires. But the more that surveys agree, the more the results can be trusted. Given the overwhelming popularity and importance of social networks, understanding social media demographics is crucial for planning your 2015 social media marketing strategy.

Which platforms are right for you or your brand?

Will Nesbit