American Facebook Users by Age Groups

First, the Stats

Using methodology as described later in this article, here is a breakdown of active American Facebook users by age group demographics. This information should have value to social media managers, marketing managers and anyone else who communicates to Americans via Social Media.

"Rebels with Disposable Income"
(15-24 yrs) = 20% of total American FB users (44M)
73% in age group are Facebook users (32M)
(Male=13.8M; Female=18.2M)

"Working-Stiff Consumers"
(25-59 yrs) = 68% of total American FB users (80M)
72% in age group are Facebook users (109M)
(Male=46.9M; Female=62.1M)

"Wise Elders on Fixed Income"
(56+ yrs) = 12% of total American FB users
50% in age group are Facebook users (28M)
(Male=12M; Female=16M)

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Next, the Backstory

So, I was working on this project with our HR guy. He wanted to get the word out fast to as many people as possible that he was filling 24 positions in our software company. As the so-called Content Marketing and Social Media expert, I offered to help his cause by using Social Media, and in particular, Facebook. (I knew from previous contract work I had done, that Facebook had some pretty good free apps for job postings.)

He (Mr. HR) was well aware that if he used Dice, Craigslist or other paid job boards, he would get a huge volume of resumes and more than 90% of the applicants would NOT be highly qualified. I told him that if we used Facebook correctly I believed we could obtain more qualified candidates – and at no cost!

But, I also wanted to give him a more precise up-front calculation of how many applicants we might expect. I, of course, knew exactly how many Facebook friends were following our company page at that moment. But, I also wanted to use the social networks of everyone within the company to help spread the word.

So, the question arose in my mind: How many active Facebook users are currently working in our company?

But, I did not want to take my time, nor everyone else’s, to email out a poll and wait for the replies to trickle in. What I really needed was “the percentage of active Facebook users within the American career-aged population,” which I assumed Facebook itself could supply me with and I could then apply to my audience to determine the number of active users. I assumed wrongly. Not only did Facebook not have the statistic I was looking for, but varying Google searches did not uncover it, either.

Well, for me, the gauntlet was thrown and my techie-geeky, statistic-loving side was more than happy to pick it up. In my search, I had seen enough data points that I intuited I could probably create the statistic I was looking for – the total number of active Facebook users within our company – on my own.

For the sake of validity, let me walk you through how I accomplished this…

Then, the Calculations

(Words of caution: I did not use scientific accuracy for my mathematics. Rather, I rounded numbers broadly since it seemed to me the source statistics I got from Facebook and others were also using rounded numbers.)

According to Facebook, they now have about 800 million users worldwide. Maybe surprisingly, about 80% of them come from outside of America! So, if you deduct the non-USA users, that leaves about 160 million for America. – Also, according to Facebook, about 50% of their users log on to Facebook on any given day.

From Pew research, I determined that about 68% of all Facebook users are within what could be called "prime career age" (25-59 yrs. old). So 68% of 160 million American-users is about 108 million - that's 108 million American Facebook users within prime working age.

Current US demographics show the population count for 25-59 year-olds at about 49% of total, or about 152 million citizens, and Facebook thinks it currently owns about 108 million of them.

That gave me all of the pieces I needed to resolve my math puzzle:

By dividing 108M by 152M (and applying percentage), I determined that within any career-aged group of Americans (25-59 yrs. of age) about 72% should be active Facebook users! (Special Note: Latest Pew research [2010] shows the gender breakdown of Facebook users to be about 57% Female and 43% Male.)

So, using this methodology, I was able to determine that about 72% of employees at our company should be Facebook users. Half of them would be actively online with Facebook on any given day. Then, based on the average number of friends each active user should have (Facebook calculates at 130 friends), I was able to determine the initial reach of sharing our job postings on Facebook. After that – and since I was on a roll – I decided to continue to work the numbers for other relevant age groups. Hence, the chart you saw at the start of this article.

(More words of caution: I am supplying these statistics in January 2012. The percentages and numbers used will change over time. Depending on when you are reading this, be prepared to re-do the math. Also, I chunked the American population into three age groups not everyone may find relevant or meaningful. (Oh well, I tried.) Lastly, it is quite important to remember that Facebook itself says only about half of its active users logon each day. So to estimate daily activity, you will need to cut some of the numbers in half.)

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Online References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Age_structure

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/population.html

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/pew-social-network-age-ethnicity-gender_b11681

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

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