How many Jews are there on Facebook or Twitter?

by Shoshana Yossef

The worldwide population of Jews is approximately 13.2 million (most recent data from The Jewish Agency in 2007).

The question is: how can you best reach this audience on the Internet? Do you try Google, Facebook, Twitter, Jewish News sites or something else?

Let's do some rough estimates for each option.

1. Google

Probably used by at least 50% of the Jewish population if you base it on US usage during 2007 (source: Nielsen).

However, how many of these 7 million Jews are using "Jewish" keywords in their search?

According to the Google AdWords Keyword Search tool; 4,090,000 monthly searches were carried out in April on the keyword "Jewish". Other popular Jewish search terms include:

"Jewish holidays" - 110,000 searches

"Jewish calendar" - 110,00 searches

"Jewish community" - 110,000 searches

So, yes appearing on a Google page is important for Jewish terms. But how can you guarantee the number 1 spot, and how much do you have to pay on Google AdWords?

The average Cost-Per-Click's for a few sample words (according to Google's predictions) are:

"Jewish" - $1.99

"Jewish stores" - $2.08

"Jewish learning" - $1.86

Targeting Jews on Google is a good idea, but can be expensive if your site doesn't appear on the first page in the "natural" search results.

2. Facebook

Total Facebook membership worldwide is only 200 million people. So how many of these are Jews that like to chat?

The only way to estimate their Jewish audience is to use their Ad targeting mechanism, and type in "Jewish" as an interest category. This comes up with only 25,720 in the US, 2,760 in UK and 4,220 in Israel (over age 18).

Maybe Jews don't like to list their interest as being Jewish. Let's try a top Jewish celebrity, say Matisyahu (Jewish Rap Singer). Only 112,540 people in the US fit this category and I am sure a lot of his fans are not Jewish.

So having good profile pages on Facebook is worthwhile because it is free, but ads don't reach many people. Also cost-per-clicks can be over $1.

3. Twitter

Total Twitter users worldwide is only 14 million. How many of these are Jewish followers?

According to a JTA survey the account with the largest Jewish following is the Israeli Consulate in New York with a grand total of 5,875 followers on May 5.

Let's check out Jewish celebrities; Lenny Kravitz (Jewish Pop Singer) has 172,634 followers, Matisyahu (Jewish Rap Artist) has 167,304 followers, David Baddiel (UK Comedian) has 14,196 followers. Are these all Jewish fans?

Twitter is free, and so far carries no ads. But it is a social network platform, and sales pitches get very little response.

4. Jewish & Israeli News Sites

The 2 leading Jewish/Israel news websites are Haaretz (www.haaretz.com) and The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com)

Both these sites claim to have approximately 2 million unique users. This is followed by Ynet (www.ynetnews.com) with 250,00 unique users.

5. The Jewish Ad Network (www.thejanet.net)
This is a network of over 30 leading Jewish websites run by The J Media Group

With an estimated total page views of approximately 40 million a month, this network is able to potentially reach 5 MILLION UNIQUE JEWISH USERS a month. More than Google, Facebook, Twitter or any individual Jewish website.

The placement of either a banner or text ad can be geo-targeted to a specific country, and the campaign performance optimized manually or automatically (using www.zedo.com programming). In this way weak performing sites can be dropped, and advertisers can test which sites have the highest clickthrough rates for individual campaigns.

Is it expensive compared to say Google AdWords?

No, for example, Text ads only cost $250 for 500 guaranteed clickthroughs ie. an average Cost-Per-Click of $0.50.

Does it perform well for Advertisers and Publishers? Ask JDate, Aish, US Airways, Delta Airlines, Carnegie Hall, The Democratic Political party, Magen David Adom, JNF and more.

For more details contact:

shoshana@thejmg.com