You have probably seen posts about the exodus of young people from Facebook because it is now the social network of choice of their parents. It is an understandable instinct. The firm eMarketer estimates continued erosion of less than a single percentage point among young adults (18-24) in the next year even as Facebook is expected to grow its US audience by a modest 2.8 percent to 160.9 million through the end of 2016.
Demographic shifts and variations are important to a sustainable social media strategy but the numbers indicate that we live - and public agencies serve - a Facebook nation. In seperate studies, Pew indicates fully 71 percent of online adults use Facebook. Compare that to roughly a quarter for other social sites in the big five - LinkedIn and Pinterest (28%), Instagram (26%), and Twitter (23%).
The Pew data also suggests that the Facebook majority also includes almost three quarters of Latinos (73%) and a little more than two-thirds of Asians (68%) and African Americans (67%).
There are clues in the Pew results to show where else groups are gathering - more than a third of both Latinos (34%) and African Americans (38%) are using Instagram. And here both ethnicity and age make a difference. Jens Manuel Krogstad with the Pew Research Center notes, “Instagram’s popularity among younger adults is notable … since Latinos are significantly younger than other groups. More than a decade separates the median age of Latinos (27) and whites (42), while the median age for blacks is 33.”
