Who Uses Social Networking Sites

Who uses social networking sites? These days, it seems like everybody is a member of some sort of social network. While once a favorite pastime for teenagers and people in their twenties, social networking now appeals to all age groups. As such, it's not unusual for a high school student to find that she has Facebook friend request from her grandmother.

In order to figure out who uses social networking sites, it helps to understand why people join them. While the reasons may vary, the most common are:

• Finding old friends: Although people once joined paid sites such as Classmates as a means of finding their high school and college friends, they now know that it is almost as easy as to do the same thing for free on Facebook, Linkedin or Myspace. In fact, MySpace recently began to allow women to also list their maiden names, so that they can easily be found by their friends.
• Keeping in touch with current friends: If you recall the movie Bye Bye Birdie, in the opening sequence, a bunch of high school kids were spreading the latest gossip by telephone. Much to the dismay of their parents, the phone lines were tied up for hours. Sites like Twitter or Facebook provide the equivalent of the gossip call. You can update your status to all of your friends at once, and receive feedback in real time.
• Making new friends: People who have specific interests sometimes join a relevant social network, so that they can meet like-minded friends.
• Promoting a business: Social networking has many advantages for people that have their own business. Not only can they promote their product or service, they can also receive feedback from their loyal or potential customers.

In July of 2009, Anderson Analytics published a study about users of social networking sites. The researchers speculated that close to 110 million Americans, which represents about 60 percent of the Internet population, are active in some sort of social network. The typical participant visits the site five days a week, and checks it four times a day. Nine percent of the users stay logged in throughout the day, and constantly check the latest news. It's interesting to note that 52 percent of the study participants had either became a fan, or had friended a specific business or brand.

The Anderson researchers discovered that there were four basic types of social network users.

• The Fun-seekers: These are the people who enjoy taking the quizzes, playing games and posting YouTube videos. These folks use social networking as a remedy for boredom.
• The Business Users: The business users are people who are promoting a service or product. However, they usually do it by providing updated information, as opposed to actively pushing the product. Hyatt Concierge on Twitter is an excellent example. There is someone available 24 hours a day, who can answer any question about the hotel.
• Social media mavens: These are the social media experts, who either work for a company, or whose job involves analyzing social media trends.
• Late followers: As their name implies, late followers come to the social networking scene after all their friends have done so. In some cases, they might get very involved in social networking. However, since many really had no interest in joining in the first place, they might create a profile, but rarely use the network.

According to the Anderson study, there are 77 million Facebook users. As compared to other social networks, they are 40 percent more likely to be married, 80 percent more likely to be white and six percent more likely to be retired. Facebook users have an average annual income of $61,000. Although many Facebook users are late adopters to social networking, 75 percent claim it as their favorite site.

The study found that Twitter users have a high interest in news, politics, music and pop culture. As compare to other networks, they are 16 percent more likely to be employed part time, and have an average annual income of $58,000.

As expected, Myspace users are young, have an average income of $44,000, and have an average of 131 friends. Compared to other sites, they are nine percent more likely to be black, and seven percent more likely to be Hispanic.

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