Twitter: Not Just for Grown-Ups Any More [Research]
Three reasons why teens are moving to Twitter.
Three reasons why teens are moving to Twitter.
Twitter usage among teens has doubled in the last two years according to Pew Internet Research. While still a small proportion of social media use by teens, this Twitter increase is worth marketers’ attention because it’s starting to reach a critical mass and provides insights into how they think and use communications. Further, as with the rest of your Twitter engagement, you want to make every tweet count!
Specifically, one out of six teens uses Twitter. Participants tend to be female and are more likely to be African-American based on Pew Internet Research’s findings. To put this in perspective, Facebook, which started as a platform for connecting college students, is still the dominant teen social media destination. Nine out of 10 teens are on Facebook. Of the 40 percent of teens who are active on more than one social media platform, most have a Facebook account. Interestingly, most teens use social media platforms to communicate with their friends and peers across a number of related activities.
3 Reasons Why Teens Are Moving to Twitter
Scratch below the surface of teen Twitter usage and you’ll find three factors motivate them to utilize Twitter that Facebook in particular doesn’t allow them.
Since many teens assume Twitter provides a level of privacy, marketers need to exercise care when dealing with this demographic on this social media channel because they don’t realize their exchanges are public or may become public without their knowledge.
5 Teen-Focused Twitter Marketing Tips
If you’re a marketer targeting this demographic, here are five tips to test Twitter engagement and help you boost your return on this social media platform. Of course, this assumes you’ve got good Twitter etiquette.
Extending your Twitter strategy to teens requires understanding your business goals as well as your target audience’s unique needs. To this end, while following your organization’s Twitter guidelines, allow teens to steer the relationship but be sensitive to the fact that they may not understand that Twitter’s a public forum.
Have you implemented any Twitter strategies targeted at teens? If so, what has worked and what hasn’t? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen