Demographic Druthers: Social Media Usage Divides on Ethnic, Racial, Gender Preferences

Stereotypes are dangerous. They encourage emotional rather than rational analysis which frequently creates misleading impressions that are inefficient and potentially counterproductive for the businesses that engage in them.

And then there are the data. Some of which have become recently available suggesting that the glorious mosaic or melting pot may be splintering when it comes to consumers' social media preferences.

Pinterest is the most glaring example of this. Five times as many women use the service as do men. Some observers believe that the site's early focus on fashion, food and shopping attracted a female audience that it has never surrendered. Others, however, suggest that such networks become self-rejuvenating and reinforcing over time, irrespective of content, and that those preferences become structural.

Similar arguments have been made to explain the the popularity of Twitter among young, urban users, characteristics that sometimes correspond with race in the US. One explanation is that blacks enjoy Twitter's ability to make their historically suppressed opinions heard. Others believe a more plausible answer is that the platform's early popularity among African-American athletes and entertainers created the framework for its base of support.

Because social media is still in its infancy as an innovation, it is not clear whether these are secular trends or cyclical anomalies that will evolve over time. It is important for entrepreneurs and advertisers to pay attention, not just because audience usage may be indicative of longer term preferences but because the factors and characteristics that shape early adhesion can be identified, measured, modeled and managed, leading both to enhancements for the media themselves and to the creation of more targeted, broad-based - and in either case more effective - solutions in the future. JL

Roger Yu reports in USA Today:

The popularity of Twitter and Instagram among blacks in American is surging, while white women under 50 continue to pin away on Pinterest, according to a demographic survey.

The survey, by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, also confirmed what parents of college students already know — 83% Internet users ages 18 to 29 use social media. In revealing the demographics of users by race and ethnicity, on emerging social-media platforms — Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr — the survey also attests to social media's accessibility, ubiquity and influence, regardless of cost and reach of broadband Internet. Pew compiled the survey after phone interviews with 1,800 respondents Nov. 14 to Dec. 9. Asian Americans weren't included in the Pew study because there were not enough respondents to draw statistically reliable conclusions.
Among the Pew findings:

• Twitter, Instagram are popular among blacks. Among black Internet users, 26% use Twitter, far outpacing whites (14%) and Hispanics (19%). In August 2011, 18% of black Internet users were using Twitter.

Across all groups, younger and urban Twitter users outnumber their older and rural counterparts. But the usage rate generally held steady — around 14% to 17% — regardless of gender, education and income levels.

Wayne Sutton, a social-media consultant and blogger at SocialWayne.com, says Twitter enables "a level playing field in getting (black Americans') voices heard."

"With the history of our culture, we now have an equal channel like anyone else," he says. "We are also some of the largest consumers of entertainment and sports. And that's a lot of what is said on social media by us."

Blacks' usage of Instagram (23%) also outnumbered Hispanics' (18%) and whites' (11%).

"African Americans and Hispanics are leading the way in terms of buying smartphones or tablets," Sutton says. He pointed to a March 2012 Nielsen study that says 54.4% of black phone owners and 57.3% of Hispanic phone owners own smartphones vs. 44.7% for whites.

Women outnumbered men in Instagram usage — 16% vs. 10%.

• Women favor Pinterest. The gender difference in social-media usage was most noticeable in Pinterest, an online pinboard. A quarter of female Internet users are on Pinterest vs. 5% of men.

"In the earliest days of Pinterest, the site was organized around topics that were especially attractive to women — fashion, food, crafts, shopping," says Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center.

Overall, 15% of Internet users have tried the virtual scrapbooking site.
Nearly seven out of 10 Internet users in the U.S. use Facebook. Microblogging site Tumblr draws only 6%.