Using Facebook to Demographically Assess Employees of Various Companies

Facebook has a built-in advertising system that regular users can use. When you go into it, it asks you for a Web site that you want to promote, then it asks you who you want to target. The targeting page looks somewhat like the screenshot above.

A curiosity of this targeting page is that it tells you roughly how many people match your criteria. So the screenshot demonstrates about 13,100 people on Facebook identify themselves as Microsoft employees. Interestingly we can then use the other options to drill down, and find out that 2,100 of those identify themselves as single, 360 as engaged, and 4,480 as married.. true proof that Microsoft is "old money" by now. I can also see that 40 people at Microsoft identify themselves as fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm, 220 for Heroes, and less than 20 for the general topic of "sex".

Enjoy!