Median Age of Social Media Users is Getting Higher

According to a recent research from GfK MRI, although millennials are still the dominant players in the social media world, we are actually having a more maturing group of social media users. 

" US — The median age of Facebook users is 40 – up from 29 years in 2009 – with other social media networks showing similarly mature users with Instagram the youngest at 30 "

"The median ages of other social site users are 44 for LinkedIn, 42 for Google+, 38 for Pinterest, 38 for YouTube and 32 for Twitter".

I think there are several important implications from this demographic changing trend. 

First of all,diversity, along with market size, of social media is expanding. It is great as companies can approach a wider demographic and of course, more customers, in this virtual world.  Secondly, companies should adjust their digital marketing strategy accordingly. As mentioned by Florian Kahlert, managing director of GFK MRI: "...just adding social media sites to a plan without other sophisticated targeting no longer automatically increases your younger or savvy target groups..." And it may be worth devoting more marketing effort to the maturing customers. Although the dominant role in the social media world is still the young, the spending power of the maturing group is probably stronger.  For example, LinkedIn, with the highest median ages of 44 among major social media sites, also had the highest median household income (approximately $112,500).  I think that's probably one reason that luxury brands are spending more time and effort on social media platform. Last but not least, the content of marketing materials should be adjusted accordingly as more maturing people are usually less emotional than the young. They are more rational and put more emphasis on the actual quality and value. In other words, maybe not very appropriate, the maturing group are less likely to be intrigued by the seemingly fantastic ads. 

Reference: 
http://www.research-live.com/4013959.article?utm_source=google&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=research-live.com

Social Media Will Have 5.4M More Users by 2016

Interesting stats in this article:

There are nearly 180 million Americans who use social media, and there will be 5.4 million more users by next year, according to data from eMarketer. The market research firm looked at the number of users on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr, comparing the numbers from 2013 through 2015 and predicting those for 2016.

The article further breaks down the usage by age groups.  For example, one of the predictions is that by next year, there will be 4.9 million social network users younger than 12, a number that will have consistently increased by 300,000 over the previous years. With 3 million users, this demographic is most active on Facebook. eMarketer predicts that number to increase incrementally, though the youngest Americans' presence on Pinterest and Tumblr will stagnate.

Not sure how others feel, but a 9 year old chatting away on Facebook?  What's wrong with that picture?