About this time last year Laurel Papworth reported that Facebook listed over 2 million Australians as members in a post in her blog titled, Australia has over 2 million Facebook members.
I've just rechecked this figure, using the same approach as Laurel (via Facebook's ad tool), and found that Facebook now lists 4,252,860 Australian members - a growth rate of over 100% for the last twelve months.
Of these, 3,957,900 are over the age of 18, 1,400,900 are over the age of 30 and only 185,780 are over the age of 50.
It seems that women are more active users (2,407,200 females versus only 1,724,340 males) and only 93,100 confess to being university (college) graduates (versus about 200,000 university students) - though education level can be left blank by members and does not provide a full picture.
It is also possible to look at Facebook members by city/town, marital status and sexual preference, but with less accuracy.
What does it mean for a government when 20% of it's population, and almost 4 million voters, have chosen to use a particular medium?
Governments regularly advertise their initiatives and engage constituents in mediums with a fraction of this 'readership'.
Perhaps we need to see greater government involvement in social media as well.
Hi Craig,
ReplyDeleteOh I use these stats in my talks and workshops, too lazy to update the blog :P
(which by the way is at http://laurelpapworth.com if you want to update link above and in sidebar).
Y'know, I can't think of another gov blogger in Australia o.O except maybe Frank someone in Victoria... glad you set me straight *waves*