Want to reach the under-25 demographic? Don’t use Twitter.
So says a recent report from The Neilsen Company. In his blog, David Martin, vice president of primary research, said, “Twitter’s footprint has expanded impressively in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 percent of all active Internet users in June. Perhaps even more impressively, this growth has come despite a lack of widespread adoption by children, teens, and young adults. In June 2009, only 16 percent of Twitter.com website users were under the age of 25. Bear in mind persons under 25 make up nearly one quarter of the active US Internet universe, which means that Twitter.com effectively under-indexes on the youth market by 36 percent.”
My take on it is that teens don’t need Twitter because they text, which fulfills the same function for them. Sure, older adults text too, but it’s not as firmly embedded in our communications culture. And even though Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds, how many new users keep using Twitter? That’s a bigger question, one which Martin addressed in April. That Neilsen report found that Twitter’s retention rate is between 30-40%, compared with MySpace and Facebook’s 60-70% retention rate during their growth phases.
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