Earlier this week, Inside Facebook released usage stats covering activity over the past 60 days for the popular social network. Last November I blogged about my own experience with the Facebook tipping point noting the seeming surge in boomer joiners. And then just 3 months later, this past February, Facebook announced Women 55+ was their largest growing segment.
But does the latest data show that they’re not sticking around?
Out of all of Facebook’s demographic segments, there was a decrease of over ½ a million repeat users 55+ over the past 2 months. After reading the comments both on the Inside Facebook blog as well as Josh Catone’s related Mashable post, the speculations as to the reason run the gamut. Some cite the complexity of Facebook for non-digital savvy natives while others point to a more seasonal usage of the social network especially around the holidays when families tend to connect more often. I personally lean towards the latter especially given the surge in usage around and after this past holiday season.
Should this be a cause for alarm that our boomers are falling out of love for Facebook? No. It’s too early to make any definitive conclusions. And to what degree does it matter? As my colleague @Stevebags pointed out, the most active (and thus repeat) users of Facebook are going to continue to age and eventually be the 55+ demographic for which Facebook (or social networking) is as much of a way of communicating as the telephone has been for our Boomer generation.
The only question is whether or not marketers, today, can effectively reach the current 55+ demographic on Facebook (or related social networking sites) given the inconsistency of their current usage trends.
Hitting the 55+ demographic on Facebook seems like pouring money into a fire. The complexity, features and free-stream is enough to give your average millennial a headache.
Of course, I'm only speaking about banner and contextual static ads. If you had a way to engage 55+ users effectively, I think this could be turned around. I just think you need to hit them over the head more with it rather then utilize such a soft sell.
Posted by: Stuart Foster | May 31, 2009 at 03:17 PM
Stuart - Totally agree re: social ads. Have you seen any examples of social media marketing that you feel effectively reached the 55+ target?
Posted by: Mike Proulx | May 31, 2009 at 04:56 PM