By A Bisht
A recent study by Participatory Marketing Network (PMN), informs us that despite of a thousand plus year on year growth, twitter is still not a happening place for Generation Y or 18-24 year olds.
Have a look at the following figures:
Only 22 percent of the Generation Yers use twitter. In comparison the presence of this age group in social networks in general is 99 percent. That's 99 percent of this group have an active account at any social network.
So why such apathy towards, twitter or microblogging phenomenon.
The activity profile of those Gen Yers who are present on Twitter, is as under:
- 85 percent follow friends
- 54 percent follow celebrities
- 29 percent follow family
- 29 percent follow companies
Why Generation Y not swayed away by Twitter wave:
Generation Y doesn't want what twitter provides -- Life for any 18-24 year old revolves around friends, fun and career. As a result they frequent to those places where they can interact with friends, indulge in some fun and get some extensive information regarding their careers. Twitter which is primarily a news source, with its 140 character tweets, fails to provide what the group wants. Add to this, the impatience, characteristic to this group, and one can understand, why a 20 year old will not sit all day on twitter to follow what they desire. Continuous flow of tweets can be an asset for a marketer or people having a stable professional and personal life, but not for a 20 year old.
Contrary to what people are saying, we feel that Twitter is more favorable to marketers; and to people who want to keep an eye on the world around; than to other demographics.
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