Topic: Demographics
Parents adopting Snapchat as their kids exit – Axios (Mar 1, 2017)
We’ve seen this happen so many times now with social networks that it’s a cliche at this point – as the parents arrive, the kids start leaving. That’s still an exaggeration with Snapchat at this point, and certainly the arrival of the olds isn’t the cause of the departure (technically, slower growth) among youngsters, but a maturing of the base is natural over time as Snapchat already has massive penetration among younger demographics, at least in its biggest markets. These eMarketer numbers, though, still don’t paint a picture of very rapid growth at Snap, which continues to be the biggest worry ahead of this week’s IPO.
via Axios
The Latest YouTube Stats on Audience Demographics – Google (Feb 7, 2017)
There are some interesting numbers here – not all of them are new, but the collection of them all into one place is, and some are pretty striking. Some of the key points: time spent on YouTube is rising rapidly – doubling from 2015 to 2016 among all adults, but tripling among users 55+; YouTube reaches 95% of online adults over 35 in a month; YouTube users skew slightly female and are more likely to have a college degree than the general population. To my mind, the takeaways are that YouTube has massive scale, probably broader than any other video platform or service in the US, and that it’s reaching that stage of its maturity where its growth is stronger among newer groups of users, notably older users, which mirrors what’s happened with Facebook in recent years. This is a massive scale, mature platform – the challenge is monetizing it effectively and generating a profit, something Google has seemed increasingly focused on in the last couple of years.
via Google