Who is using Twitter and why?

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Bill Wren

Facebook is used by shoals of people (to steal a term Kurt Vonnegut liked to use). Twitter’s growth is always “surprising” (although, by now, the real surprise would be if it stopped).

For me, however, what is most interesting is who is using Twitter. It’s older people driving the growth whereas conventional wisdom tells us any technology or tool like a Twitter, “…well, that’s for young people.”

My guess as to the reason for this Twitter growth by this particular demographic is, 1) Twitter seems more work/career/metier related (while Facebook seems to be more friends/family/personal life related), 2) a lot of people in this demographic find themselves out of work now and are doing whatever they think needs to be done to help find work, like “… networking on that new Twitter thing.”

Young people are using Twitter, just not as many. And I suspect young people are off on some other social tool of which the rest of us are unaware – at least, not until it gets “discovered” and becomes the next new thing.

(See article: comScore Releases Surprising Twitter Statistics)

About Bill Wren

Writer, editor, social media practitioner and observer of how and where people connect and engage online.
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  • http://broadcasting-brain.com/ Mark Dykeman

    I’ll admit to being surprised about the growth of Boomer Twitters, but the business angle makes a lot of sense. It also coincides with most of the Internet Marketers who keep attaching themselves to my user profile like barnacles (disclaimer: I do have friends and friendly acquaintances who are Internet Marketers!)

    I had also heard that this same age cohort was one of the fastest growing groups on Facebook as well.

  • http://broadcasting-brain.com Mark Dykeman

    I’ll admit to being surprised about the growth of Boomer Twitters, but the business angle makes a lot of sense. It also coincides with most of the Internet Marketers who keep attaching themselves to my user profile like barnacles (disclaimer: I do have friends and friendly acquaintances who are Internet Marketers!)

    I had also heard that this same age cohort was one of the fastest growing groups on Facebook as well.

  • http://writelife.net/ Bill

    I have the same marketers. I also check any new followers’ profiles. If they seem interesting, I follow them back. But more and more I see irrelevancy. I know marketers too and have no problem with them, if they do it correctly. The problem is the majority who have no idea what they’re doing, no clue how to use the tools and continue to use the traditional carnival barker methods that are only annoying.

  • http://writelife.net/ Bill

    I have the same marketers. I also check any new followers’ profiles. If they seem interesting, I follow them back. But more and more I see irrelevancy. I know marketers too and have no problem with them, if they do it correctly. The problem is the majority who have no idea what they’re doing, no clue how to use the tools and continue to use the traditional carnival barker methods that are only annoying.