With Facebook recently overtaking MySpace as the most prevalent social networking site, it is clear: Facebook is a channel to be heavily considered in any 15-24 communications campaign or youth community outreach based in the U.S.
** What does this mean for Louisiana?** Does this matter for a state in which region has the lowest internet penetration rates (Pew Internet Report here)? Six months ago, my co-worker and I put together Louisiana specific demographics for Facebook. I went ahead and updated them today. I thought it might be interesting to make a comparison to six month's ago. Again, data is provided by Facebook (most accurate available):
Looking at this graph- the demographic spread across age groups looks very similar to national data (see here for more information on national/global data). Total Louisiana population on Facebook is 266,560 (wow, this is just one Social Media site). College aged users are still the heaviest bracket (No surprise here). However high school users slipped slightly in overall numbers (this goes against national trends). But**what if we break out the 30+ age bracket,**and take a closer look?
This is interesting, in the age 30+ brackets,** nearly every age group doubled in LA user accounts on Facebook in the past 6 months.**
Is this a national trend? We could be hitting a ceiling here, but the only way to know would be to continually monitor this trend. Logically, I would think thattime increases adoption, but also ages the "internet savy" youth into the older brackets as well.
Outlook for Louisiana:
** Right now:** Marketers, community managers, and organizational directors are all beginning to look to Facebook as a means to communicate and tap into online communities and the 97 percent of youth that participate.
** Soon:** Look for a less "targeted" approach in social media and general marketing campaigns- as the variety of demographics spread on these social media websites, the marketers and technologists will have to consider the older 30+ demographics heavily. Louisiana based organizations will begin to adopt, channel, and consider Social Media tools such as Facebook as they feel more "keeping up with the Jones" pressure.
P.S. If anyone wants to run their own report, just use Facebook's tool, and you can drill down into even more specific demographics.
** Update-** Damien added these excellent points:
"The trends are national it would seem, yet the misconception is that Facebook is just a way to reach teens and in betweens. Are they their largest Demo? Sure. Are they the most influntial? Perhaps not. More and more young professionals are drifting onto social media sites as a way to connect with other young professionals. Business networking, Graduate School Alumns, these are the late 20 somethings early thirty-somes that are quickly becoming the norm on Facebook and other sites…just look at Ning for another example. Blogs are another commonly misconceived demo, with more blog readers falling in the 34-54 demo than the 19-24 as conventional wisdom would hold."