Tools for your Belt: Demographics and Surveys
Recently, at a networking event, the subject of Twitter and its usefulness came up. Being a huge proponent of social media as a whole, I immediately listened. I overheard one person say, “Why should I bother using Twitter? 16 year old girls aren’t interested in my business.”
Of course my initial reaction was laughter. Twitter has its fair share of teenage girls but this assumption was completely incorrect. I noticed it first on an impromptu survey done by TheBusyBrain (Mike Johnson) on his blog. It was a simple survey, just asking his Twitter followers to answer their age based on ten year segments. Mike’s survey shows people in their 30’s as the largest age group on Twitter, followed by 20s, 40s, 50s and teens taking fifth place.
Of course this survey only had 1500 or so people vote. So after this discussion I did some hunting for more statistically accurate numbers. Check out this post from Hitwise. It says 63% of Tweople are male and 25% of users are between 35 and 44.
I have to admit the accuracy of the smaller survey surprised me, though I’m pleased that Twitter isn’t overrun with pubescent girls. The point here is that the people I network with in real life were basing their ideas of social media off of assumptions. Research is your friend. Know your demographic and aim for it. Do your own surveys with your clients, ask them what they use the web for, why they would read your blog, etc.
My Challenge: Survey 30 clients or possible clients of yours, ask them what social media they use. Let me know what kind of results you get!
Image by Smith
Tags: Assumptions, Busy Brain, Social Media, Survey, Twitter
January 21st, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I have to agree. I thought facebook was for people in high school and college; and yet I got a job offer on facebook in just days after I set up my profile. You never know who will be on a social media site, and in just one day you could meet your best client ever. (Just like in life–the person pumping gas next to you could turn out to be a great client–so the more people you reach, the better!)
And those teenage girls will someday grow up and they, or their husbands, or their families will need your product or service.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Cynthia,
As always your insight is so valuable. You are absolutely right. It was not too long ago that I was a teenage girl. I even thought about including that point in the blog but I wanted to stick to the survey idea! The other point I thought of was: even if teenagers were the largest demographic, that means you can more effectively market to a niche audience.