In a recent Techcrunch interview of Linkedin’s Reid Hoffman, he made this interesting analogy for social space,

MySpace is like a bar, Facebook is like the BBQ you have in your back yard with friends and family, play games, share pictures. LinkedIn is the office, how you stay up to date, solve professional problems.

This is inspiring for marketers who look for a right ingredient to do social marketing. If you take Reid Hoffman’s analogy and apply with Rapleaf’s study of gender and age of social networking users, you will get the following insight:

Although the social contexts are different as described by Hoffman like a back yard vs. a bar, Facebook and Myspace share the same majority user segment whose age are between 18 to 24, women predominantly, like to socialize and share affection with friends and family. B2C marketers should take note if your engagement tactics are more on the emotional side.

Linkedin shares a different user profile with the major age group between 25 – 34, predominantly male users. You will also spot a small segment whose age is 55 to 65. This user group is insignificant on Facebook and Myspace. According to Hoffman, users on Linkedin who are in the state of mind of working in an office, want to stay up-to-date and problem-solving oriented. This sounds like a perfect medium for B2B marketers whose engagement tactics are more on the functional side.

When you are planning a social marketing campaign, remember to add social context to your touchpoint analysis. Otherwise, it is like knocking at people’s door to sell business solution when they are socializing with friends and family in a back yard. It is awkward.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eliZlF_FEAc[/youtube]

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