Social Media Dominated by Middle-Aged Users

There are still many people who believe social media is just for kids when in fact, social media is dominated by middle-aged users. A Royal Pingdom study of the following 19 sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Slashdot, Reddit, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed, Last.fm, Friendster, LiveJournal, Hi5, Tagged, Ning, Xanga, Classmates.com, Bebo shows not one of these sites were dominated by the 18-24 age group. The age group that dominated 11 out of these 19 sites was 35-44 and the average age of a social network user is 37! Results also showed:

  • 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older
  • 61% of Facebook’s users are aged 35 or older
  • The average age for Linkedin’s users is 44

Social Media Age Demographics

The 2010 Social Network Analysis report by Brian Chappell, Ignite Social Media includes geographic and traffic data in addition to demographic information on age, gender, education and household income for a wide range of social networks. Greater than 80% of Facebook and Twitter users are over the age of 24 and 40% of Linkedin users are over the age of 44.

There is no shortage of social media stats and tips and Social Media Today is always a great resource as seen in “Fascinating Social Media Facts of Year 2010” including the following:

“Facebook is studied to have the highest penetration. The top 3 sites include Facebook (51%), MySpace (20%), and Twitter (17%). YouTube receives over 2 billion viewers each day. More than 600 million searches happen on Twitter every day. LinkedIn has executives from all Fortune 500 companies.”

For more information on Social Media stats and trends visit YouTube and search social media to see over 360,000 videos. 

Internet World Stats reports over 77% of the population of North America, approximately 266 million people, are Internet users. Close to 30% of the world’s population use the Internet which is nearing 2 billion people. Facebook has over 500 million users. Twitter is nearing 200 million users. Linkedin has over 87 million users. There are hundreds of other social media sites. Still think social media is just for kids?

Elite Resumes has been providing executive career management services since 1993.

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