A study finds Reddit users are mostly young males, proving the importance of considering each social network's audience when creating content.

Marketers know their social media strategies won’t be equally effective across platforms. Longer company updates are best suited for Facebook, while short blurbs about industry developments are appropriate for Twitter. However, marketers must also consider each network’s primary demographic when planning social media content strategies.

A recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project provides a lesson in audience targeting for content marketing professionals. The research association studied

Reddit and found that while 6 percent of internet users are on the site, a very slim slice of the U.S. population default to the site when looking for news content.

Reddit’s audience is primarily young males. Pew revealed that men are twice as likely to use the platform as women, and the user population is dominated by Millennials. Fifteen percent of males between ages of 18 and 29 visit the digital content aggregator, but the same is true for only 3 percent of men between the ages of 50 and 64.

That isn’t to say social channels are primarily dominated by younger generations and are therefore ineffective for marketers targeting Baby Boomers and older audiences. On the contrary, Brafton previously reported Twitter recently saw its population of users between the ages of 55 to 64 expand 79 percent. Facebook and Google+ have also experienced spikes in account holders in their 40s and 50s.

Still, brands must consider the groups that gravitate toward these channels and adjust messages accordingly. Just as they would shorten news headlines into 140-character snippets for Twitter, or find an eye-catching image for Pinterest, marketers should share updates that appeal to young males on reddit.

Social listening keeps companies at the pulse of their social presences, and provides marketers with the insight they need to segment followers into unique targeting programs. They can then tailor content to these demographics to make sure their efforts are truly engaging the groups on these sites.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.