Facebook Is Different

There’s a good report recently released by Netpop Research that provides some current perspective on social media usage that’s immediately useful.

The first is a reminder that Facebook is far different from other social channels. According to their study roughly 90% of all socially networked adults use the site every week. This is not true for other channels… No one else comes close to those numbers.

Also, as expected, when it comes to social age matters—the 18-34 audience uses social media about 40 – 50% more than anyone 35+ in most channels. Yet, look again at Facebook versus the others… When it comes to usage age is irrelevant. Everyone was there last week.

Netpop also reported that younger audiences spend almost double the total time that older audiences do:

But regardless of age, everyone allocates their time in roughly the same way:  “Staying in Touch” and “Entertainment” make up around 60 percent of social media motivations.

Finally, it’s now estimated that 146 million Americans (80% of online adults) use social networks and that social media now accounts for 18% of all time spent online. Which is great. But it would be very useful if Facebook was more open with their click through rates to agencies.