Affluent, Urban More Likely to Use SocNets

October 1, 2009

This article is included in these additional categories:

Analytics, Automated & MarTech | Household Income | Media & Entertainment | Social Media | Videogames

Online Americans using social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn are more likely to be more affluent and more urban than the average American, according to a study of social networker demographics by Nielsen Claritas, which provides in-depth segmentation analysis of consumer behavior.

Facebook vs MySpace

Through Claritas, Nielsen defines US households in terms of 66 demographically and behaviorally distinct segments such as “Young Digerati” or “Beltway Boomers.”? When these segments were overlaid with the activity of Nielsen’s online panel of more than 200,000 participants, the researchers noticed a significant difference in the demographic makeup of the two largest social networks, Facebook and MySpace.

Key differences:

  • Facebook users have a largely upscale profile. The top third of lifestyle segments relative to affluence are 25% more likely to use Facebook than those in the those in the lower third.
  • The bottom third segments related to affluence are 37% more likely to use MySpace than those in the top third.
  • Users of Facebook are also much more likely than MySpacers to use LinkedIn, a network aimed at business and professional networking.

Despite the tendency of Facebook and MySpace users tend to be affluent and urban, a recent listing of the most popular games on each site by InsideSocialGames.com revealed that MySpace users favor Mobster and mafia-themed role-playing games, while an interest in farming games has taken hold on Facebook.

Bloggers More Urban Too

The research also found that though the blogging and tweeting community at large isn’t necessarily more affluent,? those who blog and tweet are more likely to live in more urban areas such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.

The penetration rates of the top two most visited blogging platforms (Blogger, WordPress) and micro-blogging platform Twitter showed that consumers classified into Nielsen’s 12 “urban lifestyle segments” are more likely to blog and Tweet than those who fall into Nielsen’s 22 town & rural segments.

Not surprisingly, Nielsen said that the lifestyle segments most likely to blog and tweet also tend to use Facebook and LinkedIn more often than those segments that typically don’t blog or tweet. As an example, the urban lifestyle segments for Blogger are 18% more likely to be Facebook users and 140% more likely to be LinkedIn users than the below-average segments.

“Nielsen’s online data shows that about half of the US population visited a social networking website in the last year and that number grows every quarter,” said Wils Corrigan, AVP, research & development, Nielsen Claritas.

About the research: Nielsen examined the seven most-visited social networking websites and platforms: Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, ClassmatesOnline, and LinkedIn. Website penetration by segment was calculated by dividing the number of unique visitors to the website per segment by the total number of households in each segment.

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