FaceBook started as a social community website for college students for networking among people in their schools. Now the site has expanded and is including new types of users. Media experts tell us the FaceBook audience is in a state of flux.
“Given its roots as a college networking site, Facebook has historically shown very strong skews toward the 18-24 year old age segment,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “However, since the decision to open registration to everyone, the site has seen visitors from all age groups flood the site. As the overall visitation to Facebook continues to grow, the demographic composition of the site will likely more closely resemble that of the total Internet audience.”
The FaceBook audience is still mainly student based, but increasingly others are joining up. Now many types of professionals are using FaceBook to keep in touch with their friends and contacts. Web 2.0 Journal says a full third of the FaceBook users are aged 35-54 . The bulk of the audience is younger adults, but change is still on the horizon. As the percentage of older people who use social media grows, FaceBook will increasingly become a space to connect with adult church members and prospects of all ages.
Presently, for the record, users of MySpace are a little older than the ones who use FaceBook. But I predict that FaceBook, with its ease of use and plethora of interesting new applications that are constantly being developed that the site will eventually become the preferred social media site of adults.
Pastors constantly tell me they are trying to find ways to understand how to reach out to younger adults. I see FaceBook as an excellent marketing opportunity for ministry leaders who want to understand and reach out to young adults. If you understand marketing, you know that it there is far more to it than mere promotion. So when I say FaceBook has marketing possibility, I am saying it is a great tool for pastors to use to understand the needs of the younger audience.
If you want to know what matters to young adults, what media and movies they prefer, what they are talking about, get to know them on FaceBook. Then, as you are prayerfully planning outreach you will have insights you couldn’t gain on your own. As the site grows and demographically reflects more closely to the entire Internet users, it will become a tool for understanding people from all age groups and even around the world.
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