A lot of people are surprised to discover that Twitter is not popular with teenagers. I can’t tell you how many marketing guys I see wasting time and money marketing teen and tween products on Twitter. You may get the attention of a few parents, but there are other social networks much better for targeting the teenage demographic.
I happen to have a 13-year old sister so I’ve known for a long time that kiddies don’t use Twitter. I’ve asked my sister and her friends why they don’t use Twitter and they say it’s “boring” or “stupid” or they just don’t “get it.”
PC World has an interesting article about this very issue. They found that most teens feel like my little sister does about Twitter. Only 11% of Twitter users are between the ages of 12-17 according to the article. The largest chunk of the Twitter audience is a whopping 45-years old, and the rest fall somewhere between 25-54. When it comes to chatting the vast majority of kids still prefer Instant Messaging rather than Tweeting.
Teens like to chat within their select group of friends. They see no reason to broadcast their chats to thousands of “followers” on Twitter. Also, how many teenagers can keep their thoughts to 140 characters?
The overall point here is for Internet marketers and social media professionals to remember the importance of demographics. Before you waste your time and money or that of you clients — find out if you’re marketing in the right place to the right audience.
[...] in August, I told you that Twitter wasn’t very popular with teens. PC World studied the issue and concluded that only about 11% of Twitter users are between the ages [...]