MRH staff notes - 2
1.2 billion subscribers, which is equivalent to the population
of India, the world’s second largest nation. Expectations are
that Facebook will exceed the population of the world’s largest
nation, China, by sometime next year.
In today’s changing world, Marketing 101 says you go where the
people are going if you want to reach them, and like it or not,
that’s the Internet and places like Facebook and YouTube.
YouTube has 1 billion visitors every month! Just doing a quick
survey of YouTube reveals:
4.3 million videos categorized as trains
2.1 million videos categorized as airplanes
1.9 million videos categorized as ships
267,000 videos categorized as model trains
181,000 videos categorized as model airplanes
134,000 videos categorized as model ships
136,000 videos categorized as slot cars
50,000 videos categorized as model spaceship
92,000 videos categorized as military models
50,000 videos categorized as coin collecting
12,000 videos categorized as stamp collecting
The point is, for the next generation to find the hobby we need
to go where they’re going - which is places like Facebook and
YouTube. Even for the hobby shops that are still open, you’re
not finding them being overrun with teenagers. Those young,
impressionable teens are on Facebook and YouTube.
If you look at the YouTube video counts for trains and model
trains, they’re not doing too bad!
On Facebook, we analyzed the people who said they liked trains
in their profile, across all English-speaking countries, and we got
over 500,000 people. In the U.S., 83% of 18 to 29-year-olds who
use the Internet are on Facebook, so if reaching the next genera-
tion is a priority for the model railroading hobby, then Facebook
is it.
Also, if we check Google Trends (Google’s stats on what people
are searching for on the Internet) we find that the searches
for Lego trains, Thomas trains, and Polar Express trains have
increased notably in the last few years.
But are youngsters coming into the hobby of model railroading
who played with these toys when they were little?
One example is a young 15 year old girl who was interviewed
recently on Scotty Mason’s model railroading podcast. She’s
very much into model railroading and is especially interested in
craftsman structures. Craftsman structures are some seriously
When talking
to hobby
vendors,
please
remember
to mention
MRH.
MRH-May 2014
