Social Media and Networking Demographics

I've just added content on social networking for authors to my "Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz" e-course and thought readers here might be interested in some of the demographic tidbits.

Because most of the adults I know who are new to social networking sites are starting with Facebook and clearly not venturing beyond that (based on the "I can't figure it out" comments I hear all. the. time), I was surprised to see that the majority of site users are on MySpace. Perhaps that will change, especially now that the fastest growing segment on Facebook is women 55+.

Here are some gems that might help you in your promotional activities; I've included source links, too:

• Baby Boomers are the fastest growing segment of users of social networking sites
• 65% of online teens use social networks, but the number of teens using them is fewer than the number of adults who do
• Facebook has just pulled ahead of MySpace -- 70.3 million users for Facebook vs. 70.2 million for MySpace, according to comScore Media Matrix
• Those on Facebook are better educated than those on MySpace
• More Hispanics are on MySpace than Facebook
• LinkedIn is predominantly male; household income is high
• 53% of women participate in social networking activities weekly. That includes reading blogs, participating in message boards, updating their site status, etc.

I'm about to start exploring some of the cool tools that let us integrate all of our online personalities. Which ones do you use and what do you like about them?