Social Network Demographics: Is there a middle ground between email is for old folks, social networking sites are for young people?

Nick O'Neil found this video and used in a post called "Facebook for Grandparents."   I set up my eighty-something Dad on Facebook - and his reaction "Cognitive Overload!" -- Although when I posted videos of his grandchildren on his profile, he emailed me saying he enjoyed the video. 

A question I'm often asked is "What are the demographics of social networking users?"  and what is behind that question is the need for some information to decide what social media strategy is right for their organization's goals and audiences and further, social networking or not?  I keep a couple of my links to social network site audience data here, but it is a moving target.

For example, I recently came across some recent Facebook demographics posted by Ben Lorica at O'Reilly (Hat tip Ben Rigby).  Did you know that Facebook makes available demographic data through its advertising platform. Here you can obtain estimates for the number of Facebook users by age group, gender, education, country, and more.   (If you want some step-by-steps, follow the instructions on slide 3).  If you play around with this feature, you will learn that the majority of Facebook users (around 90%) are under age 35.

Source

This made me wonder about social networks and baby boomers. Less than one-quarter of US Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, according to the JWT BOOM/ThirdAge "Boomers, Healthcare and Interactive Media" study conducted last month. The study groups baby boomers into categories by ten year increments and the analysis shows that with age, social networking site use drops sharply.

What's interesting is why they don't use social networks.  The study respondents said their main problems were: privacy, time and just not seeing the point.  The Social Media Optimization blog suggests there may be  opportunity to appeal to boomers through smaller niche social sites, like for AARP which has added a social networking section to its web site or this network for retirees.  Of course, one could also argue that if the bulk of your audience is from the baby boomer and older and you don't plan to reach out to younger people -- perhaps social networking sites are not the best Internet strategy for your organization.   

The question is when the baby boomers start dying off and the younger generation comes into its own, will they look like that those people in the video above?

How has your organization made a decision about social networking?  How do you consider demographic information in the decision?

Comments

[Beth Dunn]

You know, I'm guessing that the generation of 20-30 year-olds that use phrases like "brb y'all!" (as interns in my office do) are not going to suddenly back away from social media when they hit a certain age. Just as the boomers have redefined what it means to be middle-aged (indeed, as they have redefined what it means to be any age), the generation that has grown up with their lives intertwined with social media will redefine age-based demographic trends around technology usage.

The difference is that people who use social media realize that there is no "point" to any of it, per se. It's all just another means to an end. Tools. I think boomers who have trouble seeing the point to Facebook are right - it *is* meaningless, if you go into it without any objectives or goals.

Some people see that they have X to get done, and see that Y tool can help them get X done. If you don't know anything about Y tool, it won't ever occur to you that it can help you get X done. And you'll keep on doing X with the tools you understand.

Until you finally have an AHA moment. And then you realize Y.

[jeremy107]

Interesting post. It made realize that even as someone working to become 'hyper-connected' for a good cause, I'm not that inspired to encourage others to dive in and do the same - especially people of my parent's generation. (Unless that is, as Beth Dunn points out, there's a real reason to do so - an X to get done).

Social Networking is a tool, and all tools in history have seemed to end up causing about as many problems as they solve. Its clearly worth while to try to explore the potential of the tool in the 'problem solving' end. but the learning curve surely gets higher with age, and the extra time in front of the screen comes at a cost.

Plus - social networking is so much about density of friends or people of similar interests already on the network. So if your already in the demographic with such a small percentage using social media, that diminishes the potential benefits even more.

[Alyssa G]

I think that baby boomers will use social networks that better suit their needs. My parents (this makes me sound like a little kid) both use LinkedIn a lot, and a lot of my old professors are on Twitter. I agree with Jeremy - the social media only works when others in your demographic are using it as well.

To me, this doesn't necessarily mean that baby-boomers + social media should be ignored - if your target demographic is college professors or marketers, for example, they're going to be more apt to be on social networks. Makes me think - who exactly are we talking to and where are they talking to each other?

[Rita]

My guess is that boomers aren't using social networks much because they're busy. It takes time to get involved in social networking. Also, boomers may prefer face-to-face activities in their community and with their family and friends -- all healthy choices compared to screen time.

I write two blogs. It takes a lot of my time. I'm not doing social networking right now, but I plan to establish my own site based on social networking in a year or two.

I write a boomer consumer blog called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com and a blog called the Boomer Consumer for the Seattle Post Intelligencer at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/boomerconsumer/.

Rita

[Dr.Mani]

Great post, Beth. As a 40-something year old, I noticed an interesting thing - my peers tend to have similar interests and they are NOT the same ones of another age-group/generation.

Surely there's niche potential here. I took a small first step, but haven't fleshed out my idea so won't go into detail here. But if, for instance, someone comes up with Facebook for Seniors, with fewer rabbit holes to get lost down, and a HUGE simple 'back to home' button on all pages, I'm sure my 70+ year old mom will love to try it out.

But there are BIG challenges for anyone doing this. I've given mom a step by step instruction list on a piece of paper - which she carefully folded, kept in her purse, locked up the purse in a cupboard... and then proceeds to 'check her email' from memory, gets hopelessly lost, then frantically rings the bell to call me and ask "What do I do NOW? My Google mail won't open!"

It has happened 10 or more times already, and will happen a few times more. That's just a part of the challenge :)

Thought provoking discussion, though, and one a smart entrepreneur can jump on - and monetize big time. I've got a flood of ideas on this topic, if anyone wants to pick my brain, get in touch :)

All success
Dr.Mani

[marnie webb]

You might find some of the data here -- http://www.webuse.org/ -- or here -- http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html -- interesting.

[Brad Bell]

Please indulge my gut instinct for a moment. I question the general trends that a. social networking is a youth tool, b. it's not an elder tool, and c. social networking will exist when young people get old.

a. I can't argue against the stats, and I don't want to. But I don't think there's anything youthful about social networking sites. Social networking sites make web publishing and other forms of web communication easy for non-technical people. It's more attractive to young people for a variety of reasons, but there's nothing intrinsic to the tool that is youthful.

I'm a forty something who has no use for Facebook because it merely duplicates all the tools I already use: email, blogs, chat, etc. I'm too accomplished an internet user to need it, and too global a citizen to use it the way a high school student might, as an extension of their real world social life, for example.

On the other hand, against the trend, my mom uses Facebook. She's probably 70 something. She keeps in touch with her sisters who live a few blocks away - replacing the daily phone calls - and plays Scrabble against my sister-in-law an ocean away. She's not a fan, mostly going along with her crowd.

b. I'd recommend Facebook to seniors as a way into the internet. It's perfect for them. As for the young, it's a quick and easy way to publish and communicate. If I would consider recommending say, Apple's online service vs. Facebook for my mom, I'd recommend Facebook. (She has an iBook.) Facebook takes all these separate kinds of publishing and wraps them up in one single package. Even with Apple, I need to explain what photocasting, and blogging, and newsfeeds, and instant messaging, etc. are.

The video is very flattering of youth, in the same way we flatter youth with an innate sense of digital comprehension, despite many of them not understanding the difference between LOL and ;-)
(Laughing out loud and winking to signify a joke ;-)

Social networking sites seem very transitory to me. When the youth of today age, they will not resemble the elder newbies in the video. Social networking will not exist as a category because everything will be a social networking tool. Social networking as it is, is a bit like AOL. It is designed to fragment communication; it's closed, non-internety. And it is emblematic of the problem of reducing everything in the world to fit in a browser. Granted, the reduction suggests that young, connected people can't cope with new applications, and so they aren't *actually* that tech-savvy, but that's how it seems. (Personally, I miss IRC and news groups, which changed my life.)