The Pinterest user base is remarkably similar to the overall US internet population in terms of its age demographics, according to a September 2012 study from Compete. 66% of Pinterest users are aged 35 and older, compared to 64% of the US internet audience, and a plurality of both Pinterest (22%) and domestic internet users (21%) are aged 35-44. Meanwhile, a Pingdom study released in August finds that as of June 2012, the average age of a Pinterest user was 40.1, 5th highest among the 24 social networks studied. That study also found 63% of Pinterest users to be aged 35 and older.
The Pingdom estimates are based on June 2012 age data from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, and relate to the US only. The study reveals that LinkedIn has the oldest average user base, at 44.2 years old, with 79% aged 35 or older. Next-oldest on average are Yelp (42.2), Facebook (40.5), and Flickr (40.2) users.
Twitter Drinks From the Fountain of Youth
The average age of a Facebook user has increased by 2 years from the previous Pingdom study, conducted 2 1/2 years ago. By contrast, in that time period, the average age of a Twitter user has dropped by the same amount, down to 37.3, which is just above the average age among the 24 networks studied, of 36.9.
The Compete study, meanwhile, finds that Tumblr users skew younger than the overall internet audience. 24% of Tumblr users are aged 18 to 24, per those results, compared with 16% of the overall internet population. The Pingdom study similarly finds that the average age of a Tumblr users is 34.6, the 6th-lowest among the networks and communities examined.
The social networks and online communities with the lowest average user age are: deviantART (28.6); Hacker News (30.2); Orkut (32.3); Github (32.4); and Reddit (33.9).
Pinterest Easily Most Female-Dominated Network
According to Pingdom, 17 of the 24 sites examined have a greater share of female than male users, which is consistent with a June 2012 Burst Media report finding women to be more active than men on social media. In fact, the Pingdom study finds the average gender distribution across the sites to be 51.25% female and 48.75% male.
Among the most female-dominated sites, Pinterest, at 79% female, easily leads. (Previous estimates have ranged from 60-90% of the user base.) Other sites in which females easily make up the largest share of users are Goodreads (70% share) and Blogger (66%). Conversely, male-dominated sites include Slashdot (87% male), Hacker News (77%), and Stack Overflow (76%).
Other Findings:
- According to the Compete study, the number of unique visitors to Pinterest.com now rivals the number of unique visitors to Tumblr.com, with a separation of only 1.16 million in July 2012.
- The average stay (in seconds) is slightly higher for Tumblr.com than Pinterest.com, though they are separated by less than 2 minutes.
- Per the Pingdom study, 51% of the social media users (among the 24 sites examined) are aged 25-44.
- 76% of Orkut users are aged 25-34. Pingdom “suspects may be an anomaly in the Ad Planner data.”
- The majority of DeviantART’s users are aged under 25.
- The gender breakdown of Facebook and Twitter users is the same, with 60% being female.
About the Data: Compete’s data comes from a statistically representative cross-section of 2 million consumers across the US who have given permission to have their internet clickstream behaviors and opt-in survey responses analyzed anonymously as a source of marketing research.
