Winning the Social Media Wars With Facebook

Last week, renowned market research firm Edison Research revealed the latest social networking usage statistics:

Above, we see that Facebook has effectively won the social media wars. When you pause to think about it, getting 62% of Americans to do anything is impressive. Fewer people than that vote in Presidential elections.

The question marketers have on their minds, especially in B2C, is whether Facebook is cool or not to teens and young adults. Conventional wisdom and repeated memes all say that Facebook isn’t hot among the youth. What’s the real answer?

Whether or not it’s cool, 3 out of 4 Americans age 12-24 are using Facebook, followed by Facebook property Instagram and then Snapchat. This is a far cry from “no one uses Facebook any more”. Just how many people is that? The US Census Bureau estimates the 12-24 population to be approximately 56.5 million Americans. Operating under the belief that Facebook isn’t used any longer by 41.8 million people is a dangerously flawed premise.

If we dig into general usage vs. 12-24 usage, we see above that the 12-24 population is significantly engaged with every social network, except for LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s lack of dominance is logical; 68% of the 12-24 age bracket are age 21 or lower; they are less likely to use a business-focused social network. Visual media dominates the 12-24 landscape.

So, is the lesson to simply produce great content that’s highly visual and publish to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat? While the above statistics might lead you in that direction, there are other factors to consider. Brand reach is a different story entirely.