I work in advertising, and it’s numbers like these that are sent to clients so we can rationalize why we should spend money in the new mediums that we do. For a media planner that works in online, mobile and other emerging medias, this numbers are orgasm inducing.
All of the statistics are pretty interesting. The ones I find the most fascinating, though, are the ones that show how fast the online medium is growing and how it’s being used. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of students who applied to Amherst College increase by 56 percentage points, from 33% to 89%. I find that to be an insane growth.
Also, the class of 2012 is made up of 438 students. Of those, 432 have become members of the Amherst Class of 2012 Facebook group. How insane is that?! Those 6 missing students could still be members of Faceboook, and just not a member of that particular group. But even still, the fact that Facebook has become so pervasive is ridiculous.
These numbers are overall pretty impressive, and speak well for my industry. Clients are always looking for proof that their target demographic is active online, and want to know exactly where and what they are doing when they’re online. What’s even more surprising is the penetration that Facebook has accomplished in relatively few years since their launch.
And now I’m blogging about nerdy online statistical data here on my site. I’m going to stop now, apologies to all.
[via Kottke]
