When they were neck and neck, Myspace tried to stop punters leaving with the slogan “Your Mum’s on Facebook”.
It turns out that they were right – the demographic data of Myspace and Facebook shows that the latter attracts an audience that is, on average, older. It always has been – Facebook’s more rigid format makes it appealing to a wider audience. And for a concept that originally appealed to the under 30s, ‘wider’ means ‘older’.
Since that campaign, Facebook’s audience has doubled; Myspace’s has shrunk…
Because Facebook’s expansion has been so rapid, and because it appeals to an older audience, in recent months the average age across all social media use has risen. The biggest group is now 35-44 years old; the second biggest, by a whisker, is the 45-54 year-olds.
These figures are from the US, but the figures this side of the pond are very similar. In January this year, Facebook’s unique daily audience reached and passed the 15m mark.
It’s the functionality, the ease of peer-to-peer sharing and the accessibility of the interface that makes Facebook so appealing to most people. Their Facebook pages are tailored precisely to suit their lives – family and friends, interesting groups, places they’ve been to and brands they love.
Organisations should ignore it at their peril.