We have established that some believe Facebook and MySpace users getting older. Two of my friends recently mentioned how they had just figured out Facebook and have gotten hooked. Now, both of them are in their late 30s. Is it possible that Facebook is branching out to older audiences? Does the use of Facebook and MySpace by presidential candidates bring older users to the application or is it the other way around?
According to TechCrunch, Facebook users are up 89 percent over last year. And, yes both age groups 25-34 and 35 plus are increasing. But so are the other age groups.
“Over the past year (May ‘06 – May ‘07), Facebook saw an 89% increase in unique visitors to the site at 26,649,000 uniques, with a 143% increase in page views at 15.8 billion. The site’s stickiness has increased and then tapered off at about 190 minutes per average user.”
I think with more users, it will be even more useful for politicians. If you are trying to use either MySpace or Facebook for building relationships and connecting with your constituencies, and more of those people are using the tools, then you should be able to reach out more effectively. Once the connection is made, then you can work on sharing tailored information and also give supporters actionable steps they can take to support a campaign. Supporters can not just go to your homepage and send money, they can organize around the groups and friends at a local level.
Facebook and MySpace users are more than just high school students trying to connect with their friends. While it may be too early to see how the connections made on these networks will help candidates, there is an awful lot of buzz surrounding the issue and I want to see what having one million friends will mean for a presidential candidate.
