This entry is part of our ‘Social By The Numbers’ series which features weekly content focused on social marketing data analysis, insight and trends that marketers and business intelligence managers can use to better engage with their social communities. Look for a new post from Fred Stuk and the Vitrue Business Intelligence team every Tuesday at 10am EST.

Every marketer is asking the same question when it comes to Social Media: who are my Facebook fans? As marketers we are on a constant search for customer insight. We need demographic data to build better engagements and reach our core audience more effectively. Facebook does a fantastic job of providing analytics through their own tool, but should marketers be finding ways to compare this data more?

This week I thought it would be interesting to compare the demographics of the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) vertical to that of a group of 2,000+ randomly selected pages that all have more than 10,000 fans, as well as comparing that to the overall US population data on Facebook.

What Age Group Dominates Facebook in the US?

The graph on the right lists the demographics of all Facebook users in the US according to data available from Facebook Ads. This information highlights that only 31% of Facebook users are under the age of 24. The single largest age group is actually 35-44 and skews towards female users more than male. The heavily marketed to college demographic group of 18-24 is the second largest group comprising 24% of the US Facebook population.

What Age Group Drives the Most Likes?

This graph looks at Likes by demographic and there are some interesting findings. As you can see the 35-44 age group only makes up a mere 8% of Likes even though they make up 28% of the US Facebook population. Also interesting to note that the age group of 13-17 year olds makes up 29% of Likes, even though they only make up 6% of the US Facebook population. To me, this looks like over representing the younger group of 13-17 year olds and there could be a few specific reasons for it. First, the teens could be more inclined to Like a particular brand in general, i.e., they are more ‘click happy’, or they could be more inclined to engage with brand promotions that these pages are running to drive fan growth. Second, these teens might be a less expensive targeting option for ads and thus brands are getting more value, i.e., fans/clicks at a lower cost, than older age groups. It is also interesting to note that in all demographic categories, Females Like a page more than Males.

Who Likes CPG Brand Pages?

This last graph looks at the demographics for over 40 CPG pages on Facebook. Much like the wider audience analyzed in the previous graph, we see that Females dominate the Like category within the CPG market. Over 65% of Likes for CPG brands are from women even though the overall US Facebook population is only 55% Female. It is very interesting to note that older women make up a large percent of Likes for CPG brands than for average pages analyzed. My assumption is that older women tend to be the decision makers for CPG products in their family. Although most people would assume that it is natural that women Like a CPG brand more than men, it still does warrant further analysis and will be something I will look at in the future.

The Key Takeaway: Facebook fan analysis is a requirement every marketer is struggling with today. The more data you have about your audience, the better you can craft your messaging and offers. My analysis highlights some interesting trends within the CPG space that should be used as an example that you as a marketer can use for your own industry. Find out who is engaging with your page, build the content they want to engage with and finally create an opportunity for two-way conversation.