Category: Social Media

Check Out Some Older Demographics for Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest and Some New Demographics

Demographics change over time. Hence the specific numeric percentages could be off, but the gist of these measurements remains on target. Part of this has to do with crowds. If a platform already caters to your demographic, you are probably going to be more interested in it than in a platform that does not.

At Agile Impact, Hilary Heino compiled some impressive statistics about who really uses these image-based social media platforms.

Tumblr

First of all, Tumblr reportedly has loyal users highly dedicated to the site. But Tumblr demographics have changed.

2013

In 2013, two-thirds of all users were under the age of 35. In addition, nearly forty percent had not yet seen 25 summers.

Finally, there were about 300 million monthly unique users; the site grew by 74 percent in 2013.

2022

By 2022, over 32 million Tumblr bloggers lived in the US. The demographics of Tumblr have changed a bit, in that now the number of users under the age of 35 is 2 out of 5 (or, 40%). Its audience is 40% Gen Z and 30% Millennials.

Tumblr traffic fell off dramatically in late 2018 when the platform banned adult content. The site still has not recovered. According to Finances Online, Tumblr has 16.74 million monthly users. Reddit, in contrast, has about 3 times as many monthly users. But some of that may be due to it being blocked in China, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

Genders are split nearly 50-50. The number of site users has continued to decline, and they failed to capitalize on so many people being home at the start of Covid-19. Will Tumblr go the way of MySpace? Or will someone buy it?

Demographics for Pinterest

Here is a look at 2013 and 2022 Pinterest demographics side by side.

2013

First of all, as of July of 2013, there were 46.9 million unique monthly users. And women continued to dominate the platform; around a third of all women online had Pinterest accounts. In addition, two-thirds of all Pinterest users were over the age of 35, making it a near opposite to Tumblr.

Furthermore, a good three-quarters of its traffic was coming through mobile apps. Hence if you posted to Pinterest, you had to make sure that your content is visible, clear, and comprehensible on smart phones. Finally, 80 percent of total Pinterest pins are repins. It is probably the sign of a strong community. In addition, the site boasts 2.5 billion monthly pageviews.

2022

According to Omnicore,a good half of all Pinterest users were outside the United States. Just over 77% of all users were female. There were over 478 million monthly users. As in ten times as many as in the earlier demographics of Pinterest, above.

Per 2021 info from Statista, 38% of persons between the ages of 50 and 64 were Pinterest users, making them the most represented cohort. But that number dropped dramatically, to 18% for persons aged 65 and up. However, that was probably explainable, due to generational differences and people just plain getting sicker and otherwise not having time for social media.

Instagram Demographics

Here is a comparison of Instagram demographics from 2013 to 2022. How had things changed in those 10 or so years?

2013

So with 150 million active users, Instagram reported 1.2 billion daily likes.

And 18% of smartphone users in the 30 – 49 demographic reported using it. However, the majority of users were teens and young adults.

Furthermore, the site tied with Facebook as being the second-most popular site for teens. Yet Twitter/X was the first for that age demographic.

2024

Again, according to Omnicore, Instagram had nearly 2 billion daily users. The ages were suddenly skewing differently.

Just under 2/3 of all users were between the ages of 18 and 34. In the US alone, 22.5% of users were 25 to 24 years old. Also in the US, 73% of teens said Instagram was the best way to reach them about brands or products.

Men slightly outnumbered women, 51.6% to 48.4%.

Now it is a good idea to add TikTok, which was not around in 2013.

TikTok

Per HubSpot, this platform was dominated by Gen Z in the US (it still is). But around the world, the demographics for TikTok skewed more millennial. And globally, only about 14% of all persons aged 50 to 64. About 1/4 of Americans aged 12 to 34 had used it. Contrast this with only about 3% of American adults over 35 years old.

TikTok users were more engaged and more likely to buy when they were on the platform.  There were over 14 million daily users on the Android version of the app, and almost 30 million using the iOS version. About 88% reported that sound was vital to their enjoyment.

Social Media Platform Demographics: Takeaways

Savvy social media marketers (and book marketers) would do well to consider the demographics of their ideal customer/buyer persona before starting an account on any of these platforms. Marketing to women over the age of 50? Then Pinterest is still important, and you can probably safely ignore TikTok and Tumblr. You may or may not be able to ignore Instagram.

If you are marketing to teenaged boys, then TikTok is right up your alley. But you should not ignore Instagram. Pinterest would be a nonstarter for you. As for Tumblr, it may or may not be worth your time.

Since time and energy are finite, focusing like a laser on demographics will save both.

So, know your image-based social platforms. Because they are not the same!

2 Comments