Don’t know if there has been a recent statistical breakdown of Canadian language preferences on Facebook, but last night’s fantastic* & long-awaited Developer Garage event got me into an algebraic mood.
Please play with these numbers & challenge me if you feel this is mingy!
One of our (many) challenges in government communications (oh, hai, I got a new gig…more about that later) is our commitment to French-language services. Some comms branches & agencies, strapped for time & staff, worry that there isn’t an audience for French-language content on social networks. Last night’s #FBTO presentation by Facebook Canada’s Alfredo Tan included some great stats that lead me to believe otherwise:
- 16.9 million Canadians on Facebook (50.1% of ’09 population)
- 54% female users
- 9.5% French (1.6M)
Sooo…if we know that 9.5% of Canadian Facebook users are French-speaking, but we only care about Ontario (at Queen’s Park…not the royal we, okay?) …using StatsCan’s 2006 data (insert joke about non-Dark-Ages-government needing accurate population data here):
Let’s combine all the 289,035 French peeps with thecombo ENG/FR (26,050) & FR/Non-official/+ENG familes (3,065 & 3,405) for a grand total of 321,555 French-ish citizens in Ontario.
If total FR(& EN/Other) population in Canada is 6,777,665 & of those 1.6M are on Facebook – Pepsis have a 24% FB uptake rate.
We can now extrapolate that there are 77,173 Franco-Ontarians on Facebook. A definite worthy audience to plunk some effort & energy towards.
Now, who wants to quiz me on the periodic table of the elements?
* Strongly encourage you to track down the #FBTO presentations by Syncapse (Stella Artois case study) & Vortex Mobile (Boston Pizza in-store promotion w/ FB-integration), both very good presentations that demonstrate the impact a properly planned, fully integrated campaign can have – & what data-rich results it can yield.
