By Ben Hollom
It appears that even the elderly are now regularly checking social media to get their daily updates and news fixes. I was reading some new statistics released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Eurostat today, revealing that the number of Britons active on social networking sites is still rising, with the steepest increase registered amongst older users.
Overall, 33 million UK adults log on to sites such as Facebook and Twitter – 57% of the entire population. In comparison, figures from February 2013 showed that the proportion of social media users was 48%, which clearly demonstrates the rapid growth in popularity of these sites.
Britons are also amongst the most active social media users in Europe, coming second only to the Netherlands, where 65% of adults access these platforms. Social media penetration in the UK is well above the European average of 40%, ONS said.
The most notable change in attitude comes from Britons over 65, with one in five accessing social sites on a daily basis. In addition, 40% of the population within the 45-54 age group are also active on social platform. However, the dominance of younger users is still marked, with over 90% in the 16-24 age group using the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
The survey from ONS confirmed another trend that has been developing lately — the adoption of mobile as a means for getting online. ONS found that more than half of all adults use a mobile device to access the Internet and, of these, 63% used social networks.
These studies confirm that social networking is still on the rise, and is now being used to target a variety of age groups. Sometimes, conjuring up audience-specific content is harder than it may seem. M2 Bespoke are specialists in creating tailored, online content – look at our services to find out more about how we can help your business.