Why Teens Don’t Twitter
Why no baby tweeps?
- Teens don’t want mum and dad to see their chat. Tracking = bad idea. No, very, very bad idea.
- Their personal brand is already promoted on Myspace and Facebook through status updates (also with photo content). Why risk leaving this party for one with less people who are also a lot older. Platform loyalty is strong.
- It’s not an SMS killer when it comes to communicating with their friends…yet. They tend to SMS in less than 50 characters in chatspeak (textese) and it is more efficient arguably.
- Voice is important to teens, more so than adults. In gaming, calls and self expressed conversation.
- Teens want certain people (or groups) to know certain bits of info, but not everyone. “Careful or Joe will find out about the party and turn up”.
- Immediacy is really important to teens. Arguably Twitter is immediate, but to send it is. Is everyone listening. Generally a mobile SMS gets attention instantly from another teen on the receiving end of a message
- Like news sites, forums and social networks in general. A demographic can get in there and through the content they generate it will cause a disinterest barrier to the other demographics. The barrier being “I’m different to these guys and that’s bad”.
What will change their minds…eventually
- It ain’t cool yet. Teens are cool hunters.
- One to many communication. Update lots of friends at once.
- Bragging – very easy on twitter, you just need to be subtle.
- The social tools they love are causing a convergence between “status updates” and “posting Tweets”
- Visual identity of avatars and photo’s are important to teens so the richness of Twitter over SMS gives it an advantage.
- Teens solve for easy. Laziness is well catered for when you can update all your friends on an event through twitter and get 2nd and 3rd degree promotion.
- As Teens grow up their older work/social contacts will influence them onto it.
- They don’t mind forums so Twitter could be an easy move once they understand it.
- Brands they love are moving into spaces like twitter and draw cards will pull more and more teen consumers across.
- When Twitter is cool (in their demographic) it will take off with them. Teens being cool hunters are now more likely to adopt Twitter because twitter now hangs out at the Facebook party.
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10 Responses to “Why Teens Don’t Twitter”
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- - November 1, 2009
and no apps on Twitter like FB
@thejamesglover. ahhh true. one i forgot…you can’t set up some random party location and ask millions of people and wind up a superstar with a husky hooded jacket and white sunglass sponsorships.
Mixit, anyone? Been around in SA perhaps as long as Twitter and is huge with some of the younger folk I know in cities here.
http://twurl.nl/ckhhxb
Twitter does skew older than facebook. When all your friends are in one network, why try another? Teens won’t switch until their friends do – neither would adults!
There are some teen in twitter…and very active too! try me @MeghnaK
I agree with all you said. It’s not as cool as facebook or myspace. But twitter is an alternative experiment and once get used to it, teens will enjoy it!!
Aw, let us grown ups have some fun without the teens checking up on us
I don’t think it’s any of that. Teens like texting from mobile device. Unfortunately, most can’t afford the ones that have the cool apps like BlackBerries or iPhones. More will eventually. In my job I have to be plugged into youth culture, and all the teens I know think Twitter is awesome.
“# It’s not an SMS killer when it comes to communicating with their friends…yet. They tend to SMS in less than 50 characters in chatspeak (textese) and it is more efficient arguably.”
Not all teens type like idiots.
@sammy. there’s nothing wrong with a demographic inventing a new way of communicating. i don’t think using chatspeak makes anyone an idiot. unless it’s not appropriate for a situation. e.g. writing a book. if lots of people like it as a faster method then it will take of naturally. that’s probably a good thing.