As Twitter Matures, So Does Its Audience

The New York Times includes an especially perceptive article in its August 26, 2009 edition which ostensibly focuses on the demographics of Twitter, but also illustrates the different business applications between the microblogging service and social networking sites such Facebook.  According to the Times, teens would much rather communicate with friends via text message–after all, it’s theoretically more private (barring scores of forwarded texts) than Twitter  and sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

“I just think it’s  weird and I don’t feel like everyone needs to know what I’m doing every second of my life,”  said 18-year-old Kristen Nagy of New Jersey, who sends and receives up to 500 text messages per day.

According to comScore, a leading purveyor of “digital marketing intelligence,“ only 11 percent of Tweets are posted by those in the 12 to 17-year-old demographic. It doesn’t get much better for Facebook: teenagers account for only 9 percent of FB’s user base.

So, who’s driving the growth and success of Facebook and Twitter, especially since teens are seen as the early adopters and drivers of new technologies? According to the Times, “Almost everyone under 35 uses social networks, but the growth of these networks over the last year has come from older adults, according to a report from Forrester Research issued Tuesday. Use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year.”

Based on personal experience and my own research, that does make sense. But Twitter’s true power is not as a social networking tool, but as a way for businesses and professionals to keep track of industry news and developments, comment on relevant trends and threads and become an authority in their industries, while of course (discreetly) promoting their products and services. I say discreetly because as much as I love The New York Times, I quit following the publication on Twitter because it seemed that Times personnel were repackaging every single article from their online edition. A few posts a day to keep me informed of breaking news and entice me over to the Times’ web site; I can appreciate and live with that. But as many companies are finding out, too many self-promoting Tweets quickly assume the air of so much white noise. Lesson learned: your business presence on Twitter will not succeed if every single Tweet contains a self-promoting link. Join the discussion. Comment on, and at, the peers you elect to follow. You’ll quickly find yourself with more followers, and eventually, more business and more traffic to your web site. Isn’t that why you created a Twitter account in the first place?

The New York Times includes an especially perceptive article in its August 26, 2009 edition which ostensibly focuses on the demographics of Twitter, but also illustrates the different business applications between the microblogging service and social networking sites such Facebook.  According to the Times, teens would much rather communicate with friends via text message–after all, it’s theoretically more private (barring scores of forwarded texts) than Twitter  and sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

“I just think it’s  weird and I don’t feel like everyone needs to know what I’m doing every second of my life,”  said 18-year-old Kristen Nagy of New Jersey, who sends and receives up to 500 text messages per day.

According to comScore, a leading purveyor of “digital marketing intelligence,“ only 11 percent of Tweets are posted by those in the 12 to 17-year-old demographic. It doesn’t get much better for Facebook: teenagers account for only 9 percent of FB’s user base.

So, who’s driving the growth and success of Facebook and Twitter, especially since teens are seen as the early adopters and drivers of new technologies? According to the Times, “Almost everyone under 35 uses social networks, but the growth of these networks over the last year has come from older adults, according to a report from Forrester Research issued Tuesday. Use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year.”

Based on personal experience and my own research, that does make sense. But Twitter’s true power is not as a social networking tool, but as a way for businesses and professionals to keep track of industry news and developments, comment on relevant trends and threads and become an authority in their industries, while of course (discreetly) promoting their products and services. I say discreetly because as much as I love The New York Times, I quit following the publication on Twitter because it seemed that Times personnel were repackaging every single article from their online edition. A few posts a day to keep me informed of breaking news and entice me over to the Times’ web site; I can appreciate and live with that. But as many companies are finding out, too many self-promoting Tweets quickly assume the air of so much white noise. Lesson learned: your business presence on Twitter will not succeed if every single Tweet contains a self-promoting link. So, join the continual discussion. Comment on, and at, the peers you elect to follow (@username to have your Tweets show up in their news feed). You’ll quickly find yourself with more followers, and eventually, more business and more traffic to your web site. Isn’t that why you created a Twitter account in the first place?

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