We examined the Roanoke Facebook community in a previous post on July 6, and recently looked yesterday about 8 months later and the growth is phenomenal. In July, Roanoke had just under 10,000 registered users and in 8 months the number has soared to 28,344. That is 2,300 a month or 75 new users a day!

This is compared to growth in the Virginia Tech community from 44,000 to 48,504 during the same time.

Many of the top interest categories remained the same during this time. For interest, the top interest of the community is music and the favorite type of music is country with rap a close second. The favorite book is the BIBLE and the favorite TV show is Family Guy.

In July, 2007, 67 people were on Facebook in their 40s now that number is 2,180. (In looking at the comparison to the 50s this number seems low in July, but nonetheless, the growth is substantial.)

For the 50s age group 247 in July and now 1,164.

The 60s was 57 now 118. 

There are 92 people over the age of 70 on the Roanoke Facebook community and kudos to Sgt. Bennington at the age of 80 for having a photo on his profile and having some friends. (There were others older, but the profiles were sketchy.) Also, Kudos to Frank L. Moose Jewelers in downtown Roanoke for having a profile!

The 40 and over age group comprised just under 10% of the Roanoke Facebook community in July now that number is 12.5%. It’s a nice increase and encouraging to see more older Xers and Boomers join social media outlets, even if their motivation is to keep tabs on their children. Also noteworthy, is that the older a person is the less likely they have a photo or image on their profile.

The big aha is - just focusing on Facebook and not MySpace - the Roanoke Facebook community is about 10% of the Roanoke MSAs entire population. This is significant and it shows the emergence of online Roanoke compared to offline Roanoke. Offline Roanoke must connect to the growing online Roanoke so that both groups can better understand and communicate with each other.

Small business owners, marketers, salespeople, civic groups, non-profits, charities, etc. must have a presence to better connect to this growing population.