At Feedback we are constantly exploring various demographic and geographic differences as they pertain to our clients. As a part of that, we also explore the various channels these audiences prefer, shun or flourish in at a given time.
There’s been quite a bit of chatter surrounding Twitter demographics and ethicity, however uncomfortable broaching the topic may be. One of the most interesting statistics to come out of it all are the levels of African American users on Twitter, because the figures are so disproportional to the overall U.S. representation.
A study done by Pew indicated that as of May 2011, 25 percent of African-Americans use Twitter as compared to 19 percent of Hispanics and only 9 percent of whites (note: these figures reflect the percentages of Americans as a whole who use Twitter, and not the actual makeup of the service, which is about half white and a quarter black).
A humorous but factual presentation by The Onion’s digital director, Baratunde Thurston – bluntly titled “How to be Black Online” – noted that while less than half of African-Americans have high-speed Internet at home, they dominate mobile broadband usage – nearly double that of their white counterparts. And the ease of Twitter (140 characters or less to update) and access to other people within the service makes it popular for use on mobile devices.
And lastly, a study suggested that Twitter adoption among African-Americans was based on the finding that they are more likely to have a greater interest than other ethnic groups in celebrity and gossip news. And thanks to the fall of MySpace, Twitter has become the online outlet of choice for celebrity drama. Plus, you can shout at them.
In my opinion, it’s the age of user as opposed to race that might be most indicative of how people are using Twitter.
The younger generations (teens and young twentysomethings) of Caucasians, African-Americans, Latinos, and others generally use Twitter as a public instant messenger. It’s more conversational than Facebook, and they can not only message their friends, but also tweet celebrities and read their tweets in real-time. Like Myspace, users can also personalize their pages with colors, designs, and different backgrounds.
Thurston also makes mention of the Twitter trending topics that dominate many evening chats (such as, #thingshoodratslove, #ghettohurricanenames, or #waystogetoffthephone) in the U.S., referring to them as, “blacktags.” It’s even a subject that has entered the halls of academia. From Slate:
Brendan Meeder thinks he’s got a good hypothesis about what’s going on. Meeder, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, has downloaded the tweets of more than 100 million users. (Twitter gave him special permission to do so for research purposes.) He’s been probing this collection to see how Twitter users interact with one another; he’s particularly interested in how trends begin and spread through a social network.
While analyzing his database a few months ago, Meeder noticed something strange—he found a cluster of hundreds of users whose profiles were connected to one another. When he looked up the users, he noticed that a lot of them were black. It’s in exactly these kinds of tight-knit groups that Twitter memes flourish, Meeder says.
“It’s my impression that these hashtags start in dense communities—people who are highly connected to each other,” Meeder says. “If you have 50 of these people talking about it, think about the number of outsiders who follow at least one of those 50—it’s pretty high at that point. So you can actually get a pretty big network effect by having high density.”
These kinds of bonds are obviously not unique to social media – rather, these are cultural distinctions we are merely seeing reflected inside. The nation’s African American community is finding its voice and community on the web, and that platform of choice is increasingly looking like Twitter.
In coming months, we’ll explore ethnicity, age and other personal traits and how different cultures interact online.
-Brittany (@britgary)
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23
Facebook, Redefined
by FeedbackWe’re not going to lie. The social network was starting to bore some of us.
Such a case of Facebook fatigue is not a good place to be when your core business is online media. But if we were tired, it was obvious other people were, too. We began rethinking future digital strategies: would Facebook continue to be the place to be? If its usage among the masses slows, what will replace it?
As it turns out, Facebook was replaced this week by a brand new Facebook that brought with it the introduction of a new home page and an extraordinary overhaul to profiles called Timeline. And in an instant, the magic of Facebook returned.
In short, here are the features, and what we think of them.
Profile becomes Timeline. Essentially, the old profile turns into a timeline of your life. You’ll see status updates you made years ago, comments people made about you, and your life history – for better or worse – laid out before you. You can even go back and add more content from your past, all the way to birth. Cool video of Timeline here. Timelines launch Sept. 29 to the public.
Liking and Verbing. You can still Like stuff, but you’ll also be able to do stuff. Anything. Developers will ow be able to “Eat” something, “Watch” something, “Play” something.
Ticker and News Feed. Smaller news items go to the ticker, a sort of news feed inside the news feed in the top right corner. Status updates and photos stay in the main News Feed.
These changes have us supremely excited in Facebook again, and thinking about how it will work in the future for people and companies. With Verbs (called “Facebook Gestures”), instead of “Liking” a movie, you’ll say you “watched” or “are watching” a movie. It’s a whole new way of interacting with audiences.
The update also has us thinking, for the first time in a long time, about Facebook applications. Facebook Apps now have the potential of competing with the iTunes app model. Facebook’s apps were once clunky add-ons to the service that had been marginalized out of existence, but now, they look to feature prominently in the new Ticker. The apps are what will bring on the Verb’ing of Facebook and these more significant connections. In fact, we’re more inclined to recommend apps now than just simple Facebook Tabs on a company’s page because the latter is just a splash page, whereas the apps are true branded engagement. Just like iPhone (or Droid or BlackBerry) apps, simple but significant features work best, especially given the new Verb environment.
As for the Timeline, where to begin. When you make the switch, prepare to take at least an hour looking at your life. It’s amazing. You may find yourself going total Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on your profile, deleting status updates from exes or erasing opinions you may have had years ago but view differently today. It’s a bizarre but ultimately superb update to Facebook. Timelines will usher in a whole new era about Identity, the Internet, human behavior, and personal history.
What’s more, company pages will likely convert to the Timeline at some point, so companies should start preparing for that.
Facebook is new again, and has proven that it is truly an innovator and not a passing fad. This update just bought the company several more years as the reigning champion of online communities.
- Dean (@dbrowell) and Jeff (@jephkelley)