More Diverse Faces on Facebook

Wow, what a difference five years makes! Facebook has released a study that African American and Latino members make up a much larger percentage of the social network’s users than initially believed, debunking the myth that Facebook is primarily a white and Asian trend.

Facebook started off as a limited social networking site open only to students at universities. As a result, the network was significantly less diverse than the total U.S. population and Asians and whites were overrepresented relative to the general population. In 2004, only 3 percent of users were Latino and 7 percent were black. Today, 9 percent of the now 100 million members are Latino, 11 percent are African-American, and 6 percent are Asian.

So what are possible reasons for this increase in Latino and African-American users? Research shows that starting in mid-2007, Latino users gained in numbers as their population in the U.S. experienced a tremendous boom. And in 2009, the number of African-American members on Facebook also grew. Kwixuan Maloof, a San Francisco public defender, interviewed in an article in the Silicon Valley Mercury News, suspects the presidential inauguration helped trigger the takeoff in black members this year. “A lot of African-Americans went to the swearing in…Here we have this very historic event happening, and if you wanted to get up-to-date news, one of the fastest ways to do that was on Facebook.” This news is groundbreaking as diversity on the site not only provides more robust content for users, but can also increase marketing opportunities for advertisers.

Check out the report from the Facebook Data Team for more information on the fascinating methodology and findings here http://bit.ly/7ODHkh.