MySpace vs. Facebook: User Demographics

A recent article on Time.com discusses the differences between MySpace and Facebook, offering some interesting insight into how the audiences differ and overlap.

On a per capita basis, MySpace has 4% more women visiting its site than Facebook. Facebook users tend to be more affluent, with its users skewing towards households earning over $60,000 per year, while MySpace users skew toward lower income levels, with 12% more of its users earning under $60,000 per year. Using the psychographic system Mosaic to track U.S. Internet users, it's clear that there's a class distinction between users of the two social networks. Facebook's most predominant group of visitors in Mosaic is "affluent suburbia," a group that Mosaic describes as "the wealthiest households in the U.S., living in exclusive suburban neighborhoods enjoying the best that life has to offer." The predominant group for MySpace, on the other hand, is "struggling societies," or households that are primarily single parent, single income, raising families on lower incomes and tight budgets.

Given that nonprofits are using Facebook to network around their mission, it will be interesting to see how these findings might affect their experience and success in reaching out to constituents and communities.

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