Social Media Users by Age | What-if-concepts

Just changing planes in Portland, OR after attending the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent School Conference in Seattle this weekend. The role of social media is more expansive than many schools realize. Students and parents are starting websites that provide ranking and feedback about individual independent schools (already happening at the university and law firm level). This grass root effort is being organized by tribes of parents and students who wish to share information that does not always show-up on the school’s website. How might this effect enrollment when parents do not even it make it the school’s web page for information about the institution?

Thinking about where your web presence needs to be and the message, consider the following breakdown of social media from Pew Internet.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/17-Twitter-and-Status-Updating-Fall-2009.aspx