“But My Customers Aren’t on Facebook!”

I hear this often. Someone sits through one of my classes or seminars and inevitably raises their hand and says, “This is all fine and good, but my customers aren’t on Facebook!”

I just spent some time looking over the numbers again, and odds are…they’re wrong.

Usually the objection is coming from someone who sells to those in an older demographic, and often the thinking is “I’m not on Facebook, so my audience must not be on Facebook.” Well, my family and I just spent part of our vacation helping my sister-in-law and her cousin get on Facebook. Two 50-something women…which just happens to be the fastest growing segment of the Facebook audience. Earlier this year, my 51-year old brother signed on, after stating for years that he would never be on Facebook, and saw no reason why someone would ever even want to be on there. Now, he is a VERY active Facebook user.

This is a rather simplistic look at the numbers, but consider: the U.S. currently has a population of about 310-million. Of those, about 60 million are under the age of 13 (the age at which you are legally permitted to join Facebook). That means there are 250-million American are technically able to be on Facebook.

Now consider that 132-million Americans ARE on Facebook. That’s more than half the available population. And all age categories continue to grow, and in fact there is even a leveling out across the various age groups. And no surprise that the older demographics are growing at the fastest rate, since Facebook began as a platform for college students and was only opened up to the general public less than four years ago.

Also, according to CheckFacebook, about 60% of all online users in the U.S. are on Facebook. You can find more stats at iStrategyLabs and Flowtown.

All this to say, if more than half of the U.S. is on Facebook, there’s a good chance your customers, or at least a portion of them, are there as well. And if you sell to an older demographic, they are there, and at a rapidly increasing rate.

So if your customer base includes people in their 50s, let me know. I have three more prospects for you…

Tagged as: facebook, Flowtown, Marketing, Online Communities, Social Media, Social network, United States