Hold the Social Media bandwagon
Why It’s Important To Know About Social Media Demographics?
So, you’ve done the hard yards. You know who your ideal clients are. Heck, you’ve even created personas like you’ve been told to do.
Tick!
But now you need to know where to find these so-called ‘ideal clients’.
You’ve created business pages on each of the major social media platforms. (Surely, this will help!)
Tick!
STOP! Hold the social media bandwagon!
Don’t get trigger-happy and start posting your content anywhere and everywhere, just yet.
Just as you wouldn’t drive a car with your eyes closed or advertise without a plan (right?), it’s important that you have a social media strategy. And the best way to do develop a strategy is to build your knowledge of social media demographics.
Demographics – Smemographics, I hear you say.
How is knowing about demographics going to help me?
Well, if you know stuff such as the gender, age, education, income, or location of your social media community, you will be able
to do the following with much more success than if you are ‘winging it’:
- Tailor your offers to speak to your client’s pain points
- Create content that your followers enjoy engaging with by liking/following, sharing/reposting
- Target your ads so that you’re not forking out money for little-to-no return
Wouldn’t it be awesome if you knew exactly where your target audience was hanging out on socials?
Well, you’re in luck. We’ve done the leg work for you, so you can see at a glance the demographics of each of the heavy-weight social media platforms.
Our handy list will make it easy for you to decide which social media platforms are going to be the best fit for you and your business.
In Australia, pretty much everyone aged 18-29 is on social media (99%) but what are the most popular platforms?
(2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
There’s no denying it, Facebook is the most popular social media platform, supporting business growth. According to Business Insider, “Every day, 10 million Australians are active on Facebook” (Heber, 2015). But, let’s have a look at the advantages of some of the other platforms as well.
Most popular with 94% of social media users on the platform.
(2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
Users: As at September 2016, there were almost 15 million Australian users/accounts (Using Facebook To Market Your Business, n.d.)
Gender: 91% male, 97% female (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, 2017)
Ages: 94% 18-29 years, 99% 30-39 years, 90% 40-49 years, 94% 50-64 years, 91% 65+ (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
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YOUTUBE
YouTube, along with Facebook is in the top five of online channels visited and viewed by teenagers (Ortega-Montiel, 2014).
Users: 15,000,000 UAVs in Australia (August 2017) (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: 60% male, 43% female
Ages: 75% 18-29 years, 45% 30-39 years, 54% 40-49 years, 37% 50-64 years, 26% 65+
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Fastest growing visual platform – users increased from 31%-46%. (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
Users: 9,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: 50% male, 41% female
Ages: 81% 18-29 years, 56% 30-39 years, 35% 40-49 years, 16% 50-64 years, 9% 65+
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Has seen a surge in usage, up from 19% to 32% in 2017. (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
Users: Australia 3,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: 35% male, 28% female (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, 2017)
Ages: 70% 18-29 years, 20% 30-39 years, 15% 40-49 years, 17% 50-64 years, 13% 65+ (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, 2017)
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Best longevity – half-life of a pin is 152, 200 minutes (vs 24 minutes for a tweet or 90 minutes for a Facebook post. (Showers, 2017)
Users: 290,000 (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: Female (45% of online women, 17% of online men) (Showers, 2017)
Ages: Fairly evenly distributed amongst 18-64 year-olds (Showers, 2017)
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50 percent of B2B buyers use LinkedIn as a resource when making purchasing decisions, and 76 percent of B2B buyers prefer to work with recommendations from their professional network (LinkedIn For Business, n.d.).
Users: 4,200,000 Monthly Active Australian Users (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: 22% male, 14% female
Ages: 10% 18-29 years, 22% 30-39 years, 22% 40-49 years, 25% 50-64 years, 9% 65+
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SNAPCHAT
Has experienced the biggest growth, with usage almost doubling from 22% to 40% in 2017 – (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, n.d.)
Users: 4,000,000 DAILY Active Australian Users (Cowling, 2017)
Gender: Perhaps surprisingly, while global trends reveal a higher percentage of female snapchat usage compared with males, in Australia the reverse is apparent – 43 %of users are male while 36% are female (2017 Sensis Social Media Report, 2017)
Ages: 77% 18-29 years, 49% 30-39 years, 25% 40-49 years, 10% 50-64 years, 4% 65+
Conclusion
Choosing the best social media platforms for your business is the first step towards running a successful social campaign. And the best way to decide which social media platforms your business needs is by getting to know your social media demographics. Which social media platforms do your ideal clients use the most? Let us know in the comments below.
