How does your customer use social media? How should you use social media in your customer marketing? Does your customer profile include social media behavior? In Monday’s blog on 5 Hot Trends in Mobile Social Media I used The Social Media Report, Q3 2011 by Nielsen to cite some very interesting statistics on the growing use of mobile social media. The report has even more valuable insights on how your customers use social media.

Most Active Social Networkers

According to Nielsen 18 to 34-year-old females are the most active social networkers. If you put together a profile with an amalgam of all the traits of the most active social networkers she would be of Asian or Pacific Islander decent with a college degree, living in New England and earning under $50,000 annually. We need to be careful of “average profiles” because there is a danger of leaving out important groups. For example people in the 35 to 49 age group are also more likely than average to be active social networkers as are Native Americans and those who live in the South Atlantic states. It is more helpful to figure out who your customers are and see how they use social networks and where they spend their time.

53% of all internet users are female and for most social networks females are the largest users. For example 62% of page views on Facebook are by females. That doesn’t mean men don’t use Facebook, just that the majority of users are female. To find a platform where men are the majority of users you will need to go to LinkedIn. There you will also find that 3 times as many users have a post graduate degree than the average internet user. Each social network tends to have a unique mix of users and demographic makeup. For example twice as many MySpace users are teens and African Americans are better represented on Twitter than any other social media platform. For more detailed demographics for each social media platform visit ignite Social Media for their 2011 Social Network Analysis Report.

Online Habits Differ

It is also important to remember that online activities and habits are different for different groups. For example the Nielsen report showed that while more women viewed video on blogs and social networks men spent 9% more time watching the videos. I am not sure if this means that men are more patient and wait to see what the cat-on-a-treadmill would eventually do or if women were trying to find as many cat-on-a-treadmill videos as possible? This does mean you should think about your customer profile and tailor your online message and social media platform for that costumer profile.

Every business should have a customer profile or persona. Not only should you think about who your customer is you should consider how your potential customer will behave online and what social media platforms you should engage them on. Has your social media marketing decisions been influenced by the social media platforms used by your customers? Tell me what you have done in the comments section below or how you plan to change your approach in the future.

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