Demographics of Facebook verses MySpace
I was listening to a recent episode of Marketing Over Coffee and they mentioned the results of a demographic study (Pathways to College Network is the reference, I think) of MySpace and Facebook. Here's what they said citing the study...
"MySpace tends to be more minority than caucasion, more female than male, and tends to be people from more lower income households. With Facebook the opposite is true. It's more caucasion than minority households, older, and wealthier."Pretty interesting. I haven't heard either of the two social networks so distinctly segmented along these demographic lines. If this is true, it gives some perspective on which social network is more fitting for your next promotion depending on your target audience.
5 comments:
Another thing - you can also segment by vertical. MySpace is big in the Music Industry, while LinkedIn can target the Tech or Financial verticals.
Thanks John. Good point on music and Myspace. Just heard someone else make that very point today (and she's a singer/songwriter)...for all the reasons people may be leaving Myspace, they seem to make music an exception...meaning it's still vital for people in that industry.
I agree about MySpace. It seems as thought it is moving to more of a social media platform than a social network. The recent hire of an MTV exec. shows this shift as well.
In terms of breaking out demographics of MySpace and Facebook, I have heard the tendencies you describe before and they seem to be true. However, when you have groups as large as these two are it is important not to let these generalities steer your thinking. Let's think about it in actual numbers. Just becuase MySpace has 12 million people with HHI $60,000+, that doesn't make the 8 million or so on Facebook any less valuable. (NOTE: not actual numbers)
With Facebook's emphasis on 'networks' such as schools, you are also bound to have more people with a higher education there looking for 'old classmates'. Myspace has this too, but it is not emphasized like it is in Facebook, since you cannot see profiles of people you are not in the same network in on facebook, you have a need to join these networks.
Great read.
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