Web Business by Ken Burbary

Facebook Demographics Revisited – 2011 Statistics

Approximately a year ago, I published "Dispelling the Youth Myth – Five Useful Facebook Demographic Statistics" on this blog. It’s been one of the most visited posts ever since, so clearly there is a lot of interest in understanding the demographics of the Facebook user population. A year later, Facebook is bigger than ever, now the most visited site on the internet. So, I’ve updated the statistics below, and included some new ones, so that we can all be informed, and dispel any myths about Facebook user demographics. Like the original post, I’m writing this one to help avoid the need for us to explain over and over again, who uses Facebook, and instead direct people to this post. Here is the most recent data on Facebook that you can use to enlighten yourself and others on just who uses Facebook and where they come from.

1) Facebook.com average user figures and facts:

• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends an average 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook per month
• Average user visits the site 40 times per month
• Average user spends an 23 minutes (23:20 to be precise) on each visit
• Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
• 200 million people access Facebook via a mobile device each day
• More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared each day
• Users that access Facebook on mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook compared to non-mobile users
• Facebook generates a staggering 770 billion page views per month

Source: facebook.com, pingdom.com

2) Breakdown by country: More than 70% of Facebook users come from outside the United States

Global User Population: 629,982,480

Sources: checkfacebook.com and facebook.com

3) Global User Demographics: The global breakdown of users on Facebook by gender and age

Sources: insidefacebook.com

4) Breakdown of US users (gender and age):

As the chart above illustrates, the total US Facebook population is made up of millions of people across a range of ages groups. While young adults (18-25) lead the way with a combined ~50 million users (almost double the size from a year ago), the 26-34 group is now well behind with ~29 million users. According to the data from Facebook there a combined ~28 million people over the age of 45 active on Facebook. These are impressive user numbers from an older demographic that continue to grow. It’s important to note that the 55-64 age group is almost the size of the 13-17 group, further evidence that Facebook isn’t limited to "young" people.

A visual look at the US users by age (using data from above):

Sources: facebook.com

5) Facebook.com – a top destination site for the majority of online Americans, but some states more so than others.

Source: Socialbakers

The most important takeaway from the list above is probably the degree of penetration Facebook has relative to the population of each state. Over 50% for many!

Dispelling the Youth Myth – Five Useful Facebook Demographic Statistics

Facebook is huge. Depending on the day, it is the most visited site in the US (an accomplishment that Facebook recently achieved for the first time during Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years’ Day at the end of 2009). Yet despite all the Facebook success and its integration into mainstream culture, there are still some misunderstandings about the people that use facebook.

Just yesterday I was having a conversation with someone about Facebook in which a comment was made that “kids and younger people are the ones that really use Facebook”. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this perspective come up in conversation. When it does, I do my best to dispel the myth with the most recent demographics statistics and trends. Often times I’m asked to share that information afterwards. So,  I’m writing this post to help avoid the need to explain myself over and over again, and instead direct people here. With that all out of the way, here is the most recent data (as of 1/1/10) on Facebook that you can use to enlighten yourself and others on just who uses Facebook and where they come from.

1) Facebook.com average user figures:

• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
• Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
• Average user is invited to 3 events per month
• Average user is a member of 12 groups

Source: facebook.com statistics

2) Breakdown by country: Just over 70% of Facebook users come from outside the United States

Sources: checkfacebook.com and facebook.com statistics

3) Breakdown by population saturation: The % of country population that are active on Facebook

Sources: allfacebook.com

4) Breakdown of US users (gender and age):

As the chart above illustrates, the total US Facebook population is made up of millions of people across a range of ages groups. While young adults (18-25) lead the way with a combined ~27 million users, the 26-34 group is close behind with ~21 million users. According to the data above there a combined ~18 million people over the age of 45 active on Facebook. These are impressive user numbers from an older demographic that continue to grow.

Another look at the US users by age:

Sources: allfacebook.com

5) Facebook.com a top destination site for everyone, particularly the 65+ age group

Source: Nielsen 2010 Media Fact Sheet

I’ve aggregated data from several different sources for this post, and as you can see there is considerable participation on Facebook from all age groups. Hopefully you can use this information going forward to dispel the youth myth too.