The social network class divide

Whilst only a very small group of people have the time or inclination to tell their friends on Facebook about an awesome Tweet they did relating to their latest wicked good Tumblr, it’s high likely that we will start to see many of these networks starting to clearly divide by class, age and most certainly function.

I’ve come across a few stats this week that show how some of the popular networks are evolving in terms of user profiles.

The NYT highlights that despite Myspace’s decline it still has virtually the same amount of visitors as Facebook in the US. However interestingly it isn’t age that divides these two Networks, but potentially class. Danah Boyd, Microsoft’s Social Media Researcher who conducted the study found the following:

‘During the 2006-2007 school year, conversations with high-school students began showing a trend of white, upper-class and college-bound teens migrating to Facebook –much like the crowd in the conference hall has. Meanwhile, less-educated and non-white teens were on MySpace. Ms. boyd noted that old-style class arrogance was also in view; the Facebook kids were quicker to use condescending language toward the MySpace kids’.

The next indicator comes from Business Week citing a study conducted by Anderson Analytics. The US study found the following:

Twitter users like news, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion, pop culture, music, movies, TV and reading.

- They’re more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups.

- Twitterers are also entrepreneurial.

- They are more likely than others to use the service to promote their blogs or businesses.

- More likely to be employed part-time (16% vs. 11% average),

- An average income of $58,000, and average 28 followers and 32 other Twitterers they’re following. They’re not particularly attached to the site, though — 43% said they could live without Twitter.

MySpace users skew younger

- They’re more likely to have joined MySpace for fun and more likely to be interested in entertaining friends, humour and comedy, and video games.

- They’re less into exercise than any other social group but seek out parenting information more than any other.

- Their average income is the lowest, at $44,000, and they have an average of 131 connections.

- They’re more likely to be black (9%) or Hispanic (7%) than users of the other social sites. They are also more likely to be single (60%) and students (23%)

Facebook users
News, sports, exercise, travel, and home and garden skewed slightly higher than average

- They are more likely to be married (40%), white (80%) and retired (6%) than users of the other social networks.

- They have the second-highest average income, at $61,000, and an average of 121 connections.
Facebook users skew a bit older and are more likely to be late adopters of social media.

- But they are also extremely loyal to the site — 75% claim Facebook is their favourite site