According to Nielson Online an independent company that measures consumer behaviour online ‘Member Communities’ are dominating the global population from 50% in Switzerland and Germany to 80% in Brazil, with Facebook globally being biggest kid on the block. The report expands on the fact that not only is number of people using the site on the rise but the amount of time people are spending on these sites is changing the way people behave, share and interact within their daily lives.
The article carries on looking at the growth of Facebook adding that the industry is now faced with a real ‘Catch-22’ situation due to the fact this may be due to its clean design and little advertising clutter. So the question on everyone’s minds is how do you get the balance right? Yesterday night I noticed on my profile that a friend was no longer listed as ‘engaged’ This led to a series or questions with the response being that she was sick of all the targeted advertising. So as marketers we have a very challenging playing field to contend with.
You have a site that allows people to create profiles that in turn allows marketers to target people with relevant information and yet you have an audience that is rejecting advertisements that interfere with the user experience.
I will expand on this later but for those of you that think social media websites are for the young let’s take into account the usage in the chart above.
- One third of Facebooks global audience is aged 35-49 years
- Almost one quarter is over 50 years old
A link to the article Global Faces and Networked Places can be found on the Nielson blog
