I’m convinced that all media will soon be social — that is, nearly all content we consume will be recommended to us rather than programmed at us. Stay tuned for more on that.
But I was fascinated by Facebook’s new ad system and the data I was able to find. For example, you can now target ads based on gender, location, and employment info — pretty slick for an online yearbook site.
Here’s some data I collected first hand about the demographics of who is on FB:
50 years +: 478,640
40-49 : 613,600
30-39 : 1,979,320
23-29 : 6,594,820
18-22 : 11,062,560
under 18 : 4,129,040
For those playing at home, that’s 24 million people total, with 87.5% under 30 but less than half “college-aged” — the population the site was due to serve.
Project the data 4-5 years from now, and you’ll have a population more like 50 million, with a larger chunk of 20/30′s graduates:
50 years +: 1,092,240
40-49 : 1,979,320
30-39 : 6,594,820
23-29 : 11,062,560
18-22 : 22,125,120
under 18 : 8,258,080Estimates (obviously)
But that’s assuming they do no aggressive advertising amongst AARP members.
So while I’m sure the general ads for skateboards, Mountain Dew, and Noxema will continue, my guess is each population will soon be getting their own targeted ads. And this is the genius of social network: the growth rate is exponential, but predictable. In 10 years, who knows — 100million? 200million?
NBC would kill for that kind of market share.
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