This document summarizes the main social networks, their target audiences, and how they are used. Facebook has the widest demographic reach but is averaging age 40. Twitter's audience is slightly younger at average age 39 and is more open, allowing easier discovery between users. LinkedIn focuses on professional networking and skews older as it targets working professionals. Instagram now has 400 million monthly users and focuses on photo sharing around interests and communities. Snapchat attracts a younger audience through authentic sharing of images and video between connections. YouTube is the second largest search engine and best for discovering video content with representation across all demographics.

1. Overview of all the main social networks, what they’re used for and who their audiences are1
Name Personality / Tone Audience
Facebook If you follow a brand on Facebook, you’re
inviting that brand into your living room.
Your newsfeed is where you share things
with your friends and family as well as
trusted organisations you have a personal
relationship with.
Facebook has the widest
demographic spread of the social
networks. It very quickly reached
an average age of 40 only a few
years after launching.
Twitter Being on twitter is like attending a house
party. You don’t only meet and talk to
known bodies, you meet new people. Some
could be in a work context, some have
shared interests etc. If you’re walking past
the kitchen and you hear an interesting
conversation, that’s a hashtag. You may
leave with some new friends who have
common interests.
Twitter is the most open social platform in
terms of the professional vs personal mix.
Twitter has a slightly narrower
audience demographic than
Facebook in terms of age. The
average age is nearer 39 but the
spread is narrow.
Because of the open follower
relationship and easy tagging,
twitter audiences are arguably
more accessible to each other.
LinkedIn LinkedIn should be treated like any other
business networking event. You should be
professional, authentic and personable.
The No1 mistake users make is not treating
LinkedIn networking the same way you do
traditional face to face. You would never
sell before introducing yourself or building
a relationship in real life – so don’t do it on
LinkedIn!
LinkedIn’s power is with the individual.
While businesses can have Company Pages
and build an audience, the real activity
happens peer to peer.
The LinkedIn audience skews
slightly older than other
networks because it is focussed
on working professionals.
Universities are actively
introducing students to the
platform which is having an
impact on the average age but
it’s a slow process.
1
Please bear in mind that these are generalisations meant to give you a starting point. You should always do
research on your own specific target audience and their behaviour on any particular social network.

2. Instagram Instagram is the world’s photo album and
hobby magazine. The currency here is
eyeballs! If you’re looking at a feed of
images, your brain cannot help but process
them (unlike text which is easier to skim).
That’s not to say everything gets seen, it
just means that Instagram users give you a
fraction more of their attention when they
do look at their feed.
The content is based more around
interests than people (though there is a lot
of overlap) and it’s a place where you find
your community around relevant #tags.
The biggest challenge to businesses has
always been the lack of clickable links from
Instagram to your website but that is about
to change.
Instagram now has 400 million
monthly active users (more than
twitter). Their biggest growth
area in terms of age is 35+ and
they have implemented several
new tools to stem the flow of
users to snapchat.
Snapchat Snapchat is all about authentic personal
connection. Images and videos have low
production value but are high in
authenticity. It has clicked with a younger
audience and differentiates itself from
other platforms because of the way you
can easily control who sees your updates
as well as the filters and ease of creativity.
The audience here is younger
with the biggest growth age
group being 25+.
Instagram Stories may have
stemmed the flow of more
mature users to Snapchat.
Snapchat also has a reputation
for deep user engagement. They
may have fewer users but they
dedicate a lot of time to activity
on the platform
YouTube If you have video content you should
upload it to YouTube. It is the second
biggest search engine and the best way for
your video content to be discovered by
new audiences.
8 out of 10 18-49 year olds watch video on
YouTube every month.
Note: If you want to host video on your
website it is better to host it on a platform
like Wistia to avoid pulling your audience
from your website to YouTube.
Every demographic is
represented on YouTube one
way or another. There is wide
variation between user
behaviours from regular
community members who
comment, interact and create
video content and passive
viewers.
YouTube has detailed analytics to
help you discern who your
viewers are.