The top demographic trends for every major social network

The demographics of who's on what social network are shifting — older social networks are reaching maturity, while newer social messaging apps are gaining younger users fast.

In a report from BI Intelligence, we unpack data from over a dozen sources to understand how social media demographics are still shifting.

Here are a few of the key takeaways from the BI Intelligence report:

Facebook still skews significantly female. Women in the U.S. are more likely to use Facebook than men by about 10 percentage points, according to a 2013 survey of social network adoption.

Facebook remains the top social network for U.S. teens. Nearly half of teen Facebook users say they're using the site more than last year, and Facebook has more daily teen users than any other social network.

That said, Instagram has edged out Facebook and Twitter in terms of prestige among young users. U.S. teens now describe Instagram as "most important," while Facebook and Twitter lost ground on this measure, according to Piper Jaffray's twice yearly teen survey. The survey also found that 83% of U.S. teens in wealthy households were on Instagram.

LinkedIn is actually more popular than Twitter among U.S. adults. LinkedIn's core demographic are those aged between 30 and 49, i.e. those in the prime of their career-rising years. Not surprisingly, LinkedIn also has a pronounced skew toward well-educated users.

Twitter has begun to lean worryingly toward male users, whereas previously it was a more gender-balanced social network. Pew found that 22% of men use Twitter, while only 15% of women do.

YouTube reaches more adults aged 18 to 34 than any single cable TV network. Nearly half of people in this age group visited YouTube between December 2013 and February 2014, according to Nielsen. It was rated by millennials as the top place to watch content, ahead of digital and TV properties like Facebook and ESPN.

Snapchat is the youngest social network of all. More than six out of 10 Snapchat users are in the 18-to-24 age group, compared to 28% of Instagram users, according to a survey by Informate.

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Data scientists: IT's new rock stars

Data scientists: IT's new rock stars
These days, just showing up to work as a data scientist will get you attention.

The evolution of the data scientist role is making even those who are successful in IT wish they could go back.

In an interview with Network World last month, Robert Stroud, a member of ISACA’s Strategic Advisory council and vice president of innovation and strategy at CA Technologies, called the data scientist a “hard sought-after role” and compelled those entering the technology job market target that field.

"If I were starting my career again, I’d be going into this space," Stroud says.

The hype for data scientists was given some weight in American Journalism Review’s recent profile of Buzzfeed’s director of data science, Ky Harlin. Buzzfeed's growth has been massive in the past few years, reaching an average of 55.2 million uniquely visitors, according to September 2013 numbers from Quantcast. That's more than Craigslist and AOL, and within reach of Yahoo and Amazon.com. Essentially, Buzzfeed has made a business out of viral content, and Harlin is responsible for sustaining that.

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Who's hiring data scientists?
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According to the AJR profile, Harlin created his own algorithms that identify when and why specific pieces of web content will go viral.

"There are many variables we look at, both quantitative and descriptive,” Harlin told AJR. “Quantitative factors are things like the amount of times something’s been shared on Facebook, while descriptive factors are things like what’s contained in the text of the article. We employ machine learning algorithms that help us map out the relationship between those variables and shareability."

What's more interesting is where Harlin developed those skills – a medical imaging company. According to AJR, Buzzfeed's founder and CEO Jonah Peretti sought out Harlin while he was working in the medical imaging field, and brought him in for an interview about what data science could do for his media company. In the interview, Peretti found just how versatile data science skills can be.

"There are actually a lot of similarities between medical imaging and content publishing on a purely mathematical level," Peretti told AJR. "Both fields are looking for patterns in vast data sets. And during the interview, [Harlin] was clearly more interesting in understanding how content spreads than medical imaging, so I knew he would be good."

The rest of the details on Harlin's role and how he became the company's "secret weapon," as AJR described him, are available in that article, which is an interesting peak behind the curtains at the fastest-growing media company in the world.

However, the mere fact that a technology employee would be the center of a lengthy profile in the American Journalism Review should be an eye-opener. The kind of attention it’s been gathering has sent experts in the field out to start spread the word. In a June 2012 interview with Network World, Laura Kelley, Houston vice president for IT staffing and consulting firm Modis, advised those with MBAs to seek out certifications for statistical software programs, and those with computer science degrees to pursue an MBA. Facebook and Google have both been looking to bring on data scientists for years. In October 2012, the Harvard Business Review called data scientist “the sexiest job of the 21st century.” Data scientists like Harlin can go from work in the medical imaging field to a high-profile job at a media startup, and even though, like most tech workers, his day-to-day job rarely changes, they'll get press coverage. It seems the Harvard Business Review was right.

It all makes sense. Data scientists represent the new age of IT, where employees will not only contribute to a company’s business goals, but help identify them in the first place.

"This is where you add real business value," he says. "Where an IT person is not just running machines anymore, but fundamentally taking good information and helping the business make true business decisions so that they can adjust the business in real time based on this information. If used well, you’ll be able to spot trends and opportunities far faster than you could in the past."

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