Once upon a time I wrote a weekly column for an online technology magazine. When new Internet technologies and web sites emerged, I was tasked with predicting their fate.
Whenever I said something would take long to adopt (like e-books, for example), I got tons of hate email saying a) I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that b) the upcoming generation would look at the technology completely different than we did and readily adopt it. That I didn’t know what I was talking about wasn’t surprising, but what was curious was this faith that once younger people came along, everything would change.
Well, last week I had the chance to talk to two classes of undergrads at a major university about Internet marketing. After explaining search engine optimization, web analytics, paid search, etc the subject turned to social media. I gave them the typical talk about listening, participating, having a dialog, giving up control, etc, and how social media is a big deal (you know, the standard rap about if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the internet). Then I showed them the various social networking platforms and asked them which ones they participated in.
Now, just a bit of background here. These are juniors and seniors in a business school. When you look at them, you know these are the kids who aspire to move into the business world very soon.
So, the first class told me that MySpace was considered pretty passé, and they were all on Facebook and almost all on LinkedIn. When I asked about Twitter, however, only 4 (out of 40) in the first class used it.
I immediately posted a tweet about this and heard back from several people. Matt Collier, for example wondered whether many of them had even heard of Twitter (perhaps this was about non-awareness, rather than a disinterest in using this platform).
So, during the second class I asked this question again. It turns out almost everybody had heard of Twitter, but only 1 of 40 was using it. When I asked them why they were so disinterested, they explained they got most of this experience on Facebook and didn’t see the value. Frankly, the general comment was “why would anybody waste their time on this?”
When I showed them what TweekDeck looked like, I got almost pained looks and comments about information overload (this from a generation that has grown up with information overload).
Now, some people think that when relationships and business are important, these people will flock to Twitter. Hmm. Business is important to them right now and they are obsessed with finding jobs and building relationships. So, what does this platform mean for their future?
Other people think this is about being “ahead of the curve”. But whose curve are we talking about–the curve of people who are in business right now, or the younger generation that isn’t living in the land of curves?
As many who heard me talk about this subject know, I have no proverbial dog in this fight. I’m not an evangelist of any platform, just trying to understand what is going on. But one thing I know is that you can’t have it both ways. If you believe that looking at younger people give you an idea of what will be popular in the future, then you have to seriously consider what this group of future business people are saying about the technologies they feel are valuable to them.
So, what do you think? Well, it turns out if you’re over 20 years old, what you and I think isn’t relevant here. But look through a really objective lens (no evangelism, please), and what do you see for the generation about to enter the working world?
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I saw something similar last week at an event for Bentley College alumni. (Bentley is a business-oriented private school.) The topic was social media (concentrating specifically on LinkedIn and Facebook) and the room was packed with alums ranging in age from 20-something to 50-something.
When polled by the presenter, C.C. Chapman, most said they at least had a LinkedIn profile. Many had a page on Facebook (especially the younger crowd). But Twitter? Interestingly, it was the youngest people in the crowd who shook their heads and said they hadn’t heard of it before.
Great post, Allen. My older daughter (22 y.o.) feels the same way as your students. From conversations with her, I’ve learned that younger people use Facebook for MUCH more than we older people do: email, status updates, events, and more — and not just writing on people’s walls and posting photos. For them, it’s their community. I also think that her peers are not on Twitter, and so why be followed by her mother and her mother’s friends?
Disclaimer: I’m 27. I’ve been on Twitter since May ‘07 and Facebook since college. While I’m outside of the age-range being discussed, I’m pretty close. And my cousins are in college right now, so…
What we have to understand is that the value of any network is not the network, but the people that are in (and out!) of that network.
Twitter isn’t valuable for younger folks (as far as I can see) because their friends aren’t on it. Their friends are on Facebook. And myspace. And sitting next to them in the quad.
If you recall from college, you basically couldn’t turn around without meeting someone new or seeing a friend from your dorm. There’s so much real social networking (and when I say real, I mean actual face-to-face interactions) going on that the value of Facebook/Myspace is that it’s an excellent transcription of their day-to-day interactions, enables sharing of gossip, photos, and that.
So when you look at the profile of a college kid–and while my samples are more limited than yours, we’re still dealing with generalities here–their preferred platform for social interaction with peers is probably going to lean toward real life, F2F, etc.
Whereas if you look at older folks–myself included–it’s much harder to meet people and to sustain relationships, simply because you’re not in the social pressure cooker that is university life. So other tools get used to enable relationships, etc.
Not surprising at all. Part of my problem with my b-school classes (undergrad marketing major) was that they were pretty out of date. I believe they still are. Classes are still being taught by the guys who run the companies that don’t believe in that “internet mumbo jumbo”. Or if they do, it’s not much beyond an ecommerce site because it helps their bottom line.
Until the schools start teaching with a different mentality all-together, the connectedness of the students will remain centered around the “me networks” – facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I would bet that if you asked why LinkedIn was worth their time and Twitter wasn’t, they’d tell you that it’s because it will “help them get a job” after school.
Thank you — this just adds evidence to a point I’ve been trying to make all year: Only old people use Twitter.
The rest of us are looking at you guys like you’re confused. Your phone already DOES that. Why would you even need Twitter??
I currently go to Bentley and am enrolled in a class called social media and web 2.0. One of our first assignments for the class was to become an active Twitter user for 2 weeks. Now that the assignment is over it is interesting to see how many of my classmates have stopped using it altogether. One of our next assignments is to identify the next new thing. I’ll keep you posted on what our class full of seniors finds out.
I’m not surprised that young people aren’t interested. Facebook is more of a clique tool, with small group conversations.
Twitter is more of an open public square, with 140 character messages building blocks into broadcasts, one to many, and just general soap boxing. Plus a very quick way to build groups.
With twitter I can get news and politics updates very quickly. Both topics older populations are interested in. I can follow a topic. But I probably wouldn’t use it to stay in touch with friends.
I have seen the same pattern with my students, my daughter and my Millennial co-workers. They don’t have time to bother with and don’t see the value because Twitter fundamentally isn’t about friends, it’s about strangers. Curiously, I think this is why Twitter will be easier to commericialize than Facebook. It’s inherently less intimate.
…among other things, because TweetDeck IS an ugly bunch of information overload?
And think like a student for a few seconds, they’re sick and tired of all the business and crap university throws at them and pressured by assignments. When they finish and have this new-found time on their hands things will look different.
Very interesting article and the comments have really enhanced the conversation. My take…
In my view it’s a time thing. Twitter resonates with me (at 51, eek) because I perceive that 1.) I have the time to Tweet, it’s only 140 characters after all and 2.) the learning curve is pretty negligible. Plus 3.) it’s ignorable. Most tweets scroll by without my attention and I have no guilt in letting that happen.
So as a time strapped entrepreneur I ‘perceive’ that I have time for twitter where fully engaging Facebook or Myspace is, perceptually, daunting. College kids, in particular, have more time OR make more time. My son watches TV but with his notebook in his lap FB’ing away. Me, I can’t give Jack Bauer anything but my full attention. However, I was able to sit at a WordCamp over the weekend and tweet the proceedings without losing the flow. Afterall, I was really just taking notes in 140 character bursts.
I posit that the advanced physics graduate student working 20 hours a week probably finds s/he has neither time for much Facebooking or Tweeting and, I think, that as students move beyond the Ivy clad walls of their institutions they’ll be more likely to engage tools, like Twitter, that allow them to remain engaged in their social networks but at a fraction of the, perceived, time cost.
By the way, you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/tomjgray and Facebook (not so much) at http://profile.to/tomgray/
Thanks all for your thoughts..I’m glad we are talking about this (and being objective). I think this should help explain what might be the future of social media (rather than the evangelists who think the world is changing due to Twitter).
This is an interesting article that I have just recently thought about myself as well. I am 25, and have been on Facebook and Myspace since the start. Lately, I’ve been hearing more and more talk of Twitter, so I decided to finally bite the bullet and sign up. For me, I hadn’t signed up already because 1)I already had a Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn account (to name a few) so why would I want another and 2)what did twitter offer that Facebook didn’t? Now that I’m on Twitter (and have 452 followers of @mycnl already in 1 week), I’m truly understanding the fundamental difference: simplicity. Twitter is so insanely simple to use that it is thus more valid to a wider, not-so-tech savy audience. I think the Facebookers and MySpacers have been slow to adopt due to the lack of “customization”, which interestingly enough is the exact reason why twitter is successful. Another fundamental difference is this: Facebook is for finding people you already know, whereas Twitter is great tool for finding those that you don’t know. Younger kids aren’t worried about meeting new people as much as they are about keeping in touch with old friends. As they move forward and try to forge new connections, they will inevitably be pulled towards the draw that is Twitter.
I think your thesis that as these younger generations start to get older and move into different working environments they will move to Twitter too is correct. Many more of them will start to migrate over to a simple, fun, and easy to use social networking tool where they can meet NEW people without having to put in much effort.
The students’ indifference towards Twitter has almost nothing to do with their interest in a business career and everything to do with proximal relationships.
Twitter doesn’t make much sense if your primary relationships exist in mostly face to face encounters – as they do in High School, College, or in most intra-company environments. In addition, the students are evaluating Twitter mostly on the basis of perceived conversational value. Much of Twitter’s value is in learning via links, and finding like-minded or subject matter experts that add value to your life/profession. Once students move off-campus and on to their professional lives they’ll find that Facebook will no longer fulfill all of their needs/requirements in this respect.
Twitter is one of those rare Internet applications where adoption rates for post-school age groups may always be higher than for the student crowd. For most students, it’s just not a very high value proposition. Twitter solves a problem that they just don’t have – yet!
Twitter suffers from the “if you have no friends it’s really lame” problem. I’m 27, I’ve been on Twitter since March of 2007, I love it.
Facebook to me is info overload because I really don’t care.
RE: not seeing the value (of Twitter) and the “why would anybody waste their time on this?” opinion. Isn’t that how we all started out on Twitter?
As always, there’s a flock of us who are ahead of the curve. Sometimes the road forka and we’re on a dead-end. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Regardless, what we do is about influencing the influencers: the content creators on the web.
Those are the ones who are on Twitter.
Most of everyone else is a lurker or (perhaps) a commenter).
(Note: I define content creators as more than those who simply post about personal things on a social networking site.)
What does Twitter provide college students that they don’t already get from Facebook?
The FB newsfeed keeps me up to speed with my friends’ events, wall posts (equivalent to @reply), posted links, etc.
Facebook notifications tell me via email when I get a direct message or people post photos of me.
With its branded iPhone app and mobile pages, FB is miles more convenient than twitter. If college kids could get the newsfeed and notifications via twitter, that might change things. Additionally, it’s not possible to conveniently add FB friends to twitter, and there’s no clear incentive to go through the trouble of searching for each friend. Why bother? The people I want to keep in touch with already use FB exclusively.
I’m a tech-savvy college senior, and I barely see any point in twitter. I’ve been on the internet since I was 7, and so has the rest of my generation. We’ve known nothing else. Twitter has to explicitly show how it can make better use of my time than FB, AIM, RSS, or any other communication methods that have already proven themselves.
Unless there’s a breakthrough, I see twitter getting eaten by FB.
I have the pleasure of advising a sorority at the University of Virginia. Since I’m still in my 20s, some of the girls still look to me for advice, especially on getting a job in the current environment.
One of the girls is about to graduate and wants to get a job in advertising and PR in New York. She said that she was having trouble getting interviews, despite the fact that she has a very high GPA, attends a top undergraduate business school, and is very involved on campus. She asked if I would review her resume and give her feedback.
She sent me the resume and it looked great; the problem is that it looked like a resume that could also go to a bank or a consulting firm. I let her know that PR firms now are extremely interested in integrating social media; many of them are looking to the next generation to lead that front. I told her that she needed to show that she was in-tune with the new tools. No longer is it okay to just say that you are proficient in Microsoft Office.
All of this being said, I think that as college students realize that they can start getting a head start on their career by blogging, twittering, and further utilizing social networking tools for self-promotion, they will get on the band wagon.
Alexandra Gibson
@gibsondm
I’m 26 and have been on Facebook since fall of 2004. I’ve been on MySpace and long off of it. I’m on LinkedIn and I avoided Twitter until recently. Now that I’ve been on it, I debate almost every day about whether its a waste of time or not.
The toughest part for me is finding people who Tweet relevant, good stuff but don’t overdo it. For example, the Zappo’s guy was good until election time when he was posting 50 things a day about Obama. I had no interest in the CEO of a shoe store’s feelings about the election. Then there’s people like Guy Kawasaki and the Kodak Chief Blogger that post too much, in my opinion, but I keep following them because as a marketer, I want to see how they are utilizing it.
Its most definitely an information overload though – between that, my RSS reader, Facebook and all the e-newsletters I get, it’d be easy not to get a thing done at work all day.
I knew this was coming considering what has been happening in Japan, where Social Networking became very popular back in 2005. At first, everyone was on SNS all the time, every day. Then within a year or so, they got bored with it. It’s not just college students, but adults are acting the same way. When the corporations start to “push” information through Social Media instead of networking=interacting with the other users, it becomes another feed tools, and becomes it takes the “fun” away.
Also, I noticed that in many cases, when the community becomes too big, people no longer feel that they “belong” or “a part of the group” anymore.
I agree with you. I have also found most people under 30 don’t seem to take to Twitter unless there is a very special reason.
I am finding that young people are overwhelmed with the constant public exposure and some are getting rid of their Facebook profiles all together.
So if I had a crystal ball I would probably say that the future generation of grads would welcome a smaller more private online social world with small Linkedin groups or exclusive private networking groups on Facebook where they can choose a select group of people to network in.
amazing consistency. I gave a talk at a marketing class at NYU and only 2 hands out of 40 kids in the class went up when I asked who was on twitter.
Joel Rubinson/The ARF
My 18 year old son said the exact same thing to me. Why twitter? That’s lame.
Partially, it may be because they have more opportunities to increase their personal social network through real-life interaction, especially students and those who frequent clubs.
Us old fogies (I’m 39), have to stay at home and twitter.
It is sort of ironic, but I became more involved in Twitter after I met people (face to face) at a social media club and got involved with the club! Twitter makes more sense to me now, because I have developed relationships. Prior to that encounter, Twitter eluded me on what the attraction was.
Yep, 40 something person. And I had to admit I was afraid when I went to the social media meeting, I would be the oldest person there. Fortunately I would say there was a good mix of young and those of us that are “not so young”
Carol Doms
Allan, a great post! I teach this same age group and when I asked them what they knew about social media, I got blank stares. When I asked about MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I got smiles, laughs. They get the tools, but not the business terms we use for those tools. They are also struggling with making the leap on how to use it for business and that’s understandable.
My class also doesn’t see the intrigue of Twitter. It might just be the case that it’s too difficult to move their social network from Facebook to Twitter. We saw that with Plurk & Twitter.
It’s interesting to hear from people in their 20s, now I’m wondering what that means for people 10 years younger (my son, for example is 17). Ten years is a long time in “internet time”, so it makes me wonder where all of this will be in 2019 (will you still be addicted to twittering all day, everday in 10 years?)
By the way, I’ll ask the students I taught last week to come here and post their comments, so you might check back here tomorrow to see what people in the teens think about this issue.
If we had a dollar for every time a business person said they had polled their children about the social media recommendations a marketer had made, the proposals would be paid for.
Allen, you’re not polling your children, but you are polling another specious group: business or liberal arts majors at universities.
In 1998, if you were to ask non-techie college seniors about how often they used email, I bet few would’ve said more than a couple of hours per week. Yet, email was pervasive in business at the time, and when those seniors landed jobs the following year many were thrown into using the now ubiquitous correspondence tool day in and day out.
Many universities are bubbles with cultures and past times that hardly resemble those of other milieus.
Heck, if were to trust college students about what’s cool to listen to, for the past twenty years you would’ve heard The Grateful Dead or Bob Marley.
Hi Jeff
Right, I was polling only a select group of business and liberal arts majors taking a business class. I’ve also asked my children (ages 15 and 17). Clearly, this is not a scientific sample (and I never said it was), only a basis for opening up an interesting discussion.
I’m 17.
I just don’t see what the real value is since 1) None of my friends use Twitter and 2) It’s Facebook except only with status updates.
Why would I ever want to downgrade so I can’t see pictures and post on my friends’ walls? The only possible reason I could see is that it isn’t exactly kosher to continually update your status but its still possible obviously. To me using Twitter just comes off as much more conceited.
I guess my point is, Allen, U.S. college students, living in a weird bubble, don’t know what will be important to them when they enter the next phase of their life.
I realize that your piece really addresses those early-adopter evangelists who bank on “when the younger people come of age,” but we could silence a lot of the confusing noise by asking a two-part question: Are XYZ business’s customers using these tools and which ones?
We can debate all day about whether the social media addicts are right, the with-it journalists are right, our children are right, and so on, but all that really matters is what your customers and target audiences care about.
If one’s customers aren’t on Twitter but are on MySpace — despite it being the fashionably unfashionable platform of the moment — one should know where they need to be.
Hi Professor Weiss! After listening to your lecture and reading this article I decided to create a Twitter account to see what it is. Right off the bat it seems like a very valuable medium of communication especially for staying in touch with people who either have horrible work schedules or live across the world. In regards to what you were saying about business students wanting to create new relationships, something bothers me. I understand we keep moving deeper into the world of technology and that social networks are increasing, but shouldn’t relationship building be done face to face in a café or anywhere else other than on a computer? I guess what I am trying to say is that although I find it very important to meet new people and create new relationships, I don’t know how far Twitter can help people out? It is just worry-some to think that some people may spend their lives Twittering away without actually having those real relationships. But as a way to meet new people, it is great.
i’m not surprised too, in my own class i have the same conclusion. I asked my classmate if they use or will use Twitter and their answers was what is twitter ? or no, i’m still on facebook !!
I try to reflect on this and i think it is a problem of use : in general, using twitter is for us destinated to professional goals (find potential customers, discuss with interested contacts) but the term of social media never came in my discussions. I think , there is a lack around this notion, that’s why lot of students don’t know Twitter or don’t want to use it, because they don’t see any “personnal” interests.
I have another notion with the development of a “new marketing roadmap generation”, and i kwow and i’m sure that Twitter is very important and useful for people who come from marketing, communication world, but other worlds too!
I tried to read through other comments, but I don’t have the time, so hopefully this is something that hasn’t been discussed.
I’m in the Journalism school at the University of Missouri, and Twitter is starting to trend here. One of the younger professors and New Media Director at the local tv station, KOMU (@jenleereeves) has been talking about it and even gave a great brown-bag presentation on Monday to J-students and professors on the uses of Twitter, both personally and professionally. I’ve head a lot through school (not in classes but in interaction) about uses of Twitter in the newsroom, but as far as business goes, I haven’t head anything. The majority of my friends in business know about Twitter, but have no understanding of what it does or how they could use it.
I’m at the cross-section between journalism and marketing, being a strategic communications major in the J-School but also having great interests in marketing, so that is probably why I am more aware and well-versed in Twitter than my business school buddies. However, even the few business professors (only one specifically marketing prof) I have talked to do not use Twitter and have not tried to understand it from a business sense. This is why I am interested to see how this situation progresses. Will it become a part of coursework (Professor Reeves has started to integrate it into her new media classes and internships at KOMU), or will higher education ignore informing their students (especially the business sector)? If business schools continue to ignore this, will this hurt their product (students) when they are on the job market? Is Twitter and social media understanding going to become a standard interview topic for young marketers? These are all things I am interested to see progress in the next few years and I was wondering what your opinion is on this.
Asked my grad class of 40 students the same questions end of January – mix of MBA and MS, split evenly between full-time and part-timers, more than half marketing majors, ages ranging from probably 24 to 44.
I got a “zero-for-forty” on who uses Twitter.
Shocked, i decided to then ask how many have never heard of Twitter. Got four-for-forty on that one.
Twitter only came alive for me once I started accessing it on an iPhone, rather than sitting at my computer. My twenty-plus-year-younger brother and sister can’t afford a phone on which they can follow Twitter. Does that effect adoption and interest rates?
I use twitter daily. I am old (at least by your definition). But for me, twitter isn’t about keeping in touch with my friends as much as keeping in touch with people. You’d be surprised how many sports people and movie stars use twitter. I like following what they have to say. I rarely post. My life isn’t that interesting… I also use it to find out what leaders in the marketing field are doing, in general and with twitter, to grow their business. Lots of businesses use twitter. Did you know Bill Gates has a twitter site? I have more important things to do than post pictures of myself at the latest party, or tell everyone how I’m feeling.
Hi Mr. Weiss,
I also was at your lectures in my Marketing class at the university and was definitely not surprised by the response of my peers to Twitter. Since basically everyone uses Facebook as their main or only social networking site, I think what a lot of people my age feel is that Twitter is basically one large “Facebook status update” website.
In fact, my least favorite feature on Facebook is the status update – so I definitely find the idea of Twitter and micro blog updates unappealing.
I cannot say that this will always be the case, however, because it is definitely possible that one day my career or lifestyle will make me realize that a Twitter account is a necessity. On that day, I guess I will have to throw away my apprehension toward it and accept it.
One of my friends, who is still in college, has a Twitter profile and just uses it to “listen” occasionally. She joined because I told her it will be really useful in her career (and she’s since been asked about it in interviews with insurance companies). There are still a lot of my friends (and quite a lot of B-school seniors) who have either never heard of Twitter or don’t understand how it’s any different than Facebook status updates.
Just goes to show you that maybe you shouldn’t hire a just-out-of-college kid to run your internet marketing based solely on their “with it” age… unless they *really* know how to reach your customers in the social media space!
It is about a basic human need to socialize.
Young people have this need very well satisfied.
People that work 8-12 hours per day, are not satisfied on this need.
First, who is this ‘Matt Collier’ guy?
Second, I think Clay hit on the important point, it’s not about the tool, it’s about your network. I love Twitter because EVERYONE I know is there. It’s now gotten to the point where if I need to contact someone quickly, I will DM them before emailing them. My network is on Twitter.
Interestingly, I see Facebook as information overload. I am constantly bombarded with event/cause/status/poke notifications, many of which I have no interest in whatsoever.
But if EVERYONE I needed to contact on a daily basis was on Facebook, I would probably have a much better opinion of the site, and would probably use it daily, like I do Twitter now.
For several months after I joined Twitter, most of my friends were on Facebook or elsewhere. I didn’t see the big deal, and it seemed like a big fat ole waste of time.
Now I would be completely lost if I had to go a day without access to Twitter. Because that would also mean I would lose a day’s contact with my NETWORK.
As always, don’t focus on the tools, focus on the connections that the tool helps facilitate. Right now Twitter is facilitating those connections for me. If someone else is getting the same from Facebook or another social tool, that’s where they will be.
Allen, I had the same experience to a communications class I spoke to at LSU recently. Everyone of them was on Facebook, none had even heard of Twitter. I was flabbergasted.
Universities don’t teach their students how to use social media as a marketing platform because it’s too new. Sure Professors may tell their students about it but if students don’t see the value, and if their friends aren’t using it, it slips off the radar screen.
MySpace and Facebook went through what Twitter is going through with young people. People hesitated about creating an account and once all their friends had one they end up creating one to.
It’ll take a little more time before Twitter gains critical mass amongst the youth but it will happen.
Twitter is a powerful conversation tool!
I am a 24 year old commerce/marketing graduate (finished my degree in December). I am now working at an interactive marketing company and (ironically) my position is social media marketer.
I understand why young people (students), don’t want to use twitter. I didn’t use it until a month ago when I started my job and was basically forced to use the tool and learn with it. I’ve talked to my friends (all of whom are still in University) and I’ve heard “what’s the point?” COUNTLESS times, and even said it myself when I first registered last September.
Here’s my perspective.
Within online “communities”, unless all your friends are there, it isn’t a community. It’s a playground with no one playing, a library with no one reading. It’s pointless. I had Facebook when it first was available only to colleges but only started really using it when my friends subscribed. People go where their friends go, and if twitter is being portrayed as a community or a place for status updates, they won’t use it.
I use twitter a little bit for the community aspect, but more for information dissemination. I try not to follow people that have only “status update” tweets. (ie- I’m getting a coffee. Yum!”)
I follow people who are experts in their field who provide information that I’m looking for, I follow people I know, and I follow people who have interesting tweets about various topics (which usually aren’t focussed on themselves). I use twitter as a news source and a medium to disperse information, links, and insights that I think are valuable to others. I still post my own musings and status updates, but I think it’s only for my own benefit, and maybe for people who are close to me and use twitter.
I think if twitter marketed itself for ALL of its uses, not just “what are you doing?” to students, you would have many more students learning and reading about different subjects, then subsequently building their community based on that.
Twitter is what you make of it. I think it’s an invaluable tool, but the “What are you doing?” question throws people off because they only see one way of using the tool. If they knew they could get updates and discounts on purchases (@JetBlue), find valuable links and articles (for fun or learning, @mashable) , for meeting other people (@krusk), for broadcasting themselves and for listening, I think students would see more value.
Long post, but I was a student until 2 months ago who found no value, and now I use it all the time. It’s my live newspaper.
Very interesting post and comments. I’m over in Oz and a few weeks back when I was out for drinks with an old colleague, she told me “word is, Twitter is for young people and Facebook is for the older generation like us”. We’re 35. I had not heard of Twitter before then and having only used LinkedIn and Facebook I was intrigued. Having created an account and started to follow many Tweeters, I’m sorry I can’t see the real value in Tweeter. After reading this post and comments, I’m starting to wonder in Tweeter is just a platform for Marketers to push there PR online, or are we just desperate to jump on the bandwagon and see what we can make of it. I noticed one Aussie company using Tweeter as a medium to provide technical support/ customer service. Are we just clutching at the next new thing and hoping this will give us the momentum to push more marketing messages out there? But to who? Other marketers?
My experiment since has been to mention Twitter to as many of my friends (esp. those on FB) and gauge their reaction. For most, they’re telling me FB is more than enough. A few showed a keen (albeit perverse) interest, wanting to know how can they get out there and meet more people online. In any case, none had heard of Twitter (don’t forget this is the mid 20’s to early 40’s bracket).
My younger sister is 12 and tells me “not interested” and returns to her FB page.
BTW thank you for the post and the interesting comments, I have found this extremely valuable.
Renee
I’ve wondered about this myself. As a nearly-fresh-out-of-college person, my cohort was the first to experience Facebook, Friendster, and MySpace. I’ve been having a difficult time understanding the pull of Twitter.
Of course, I have a Twitter account, but only because the majority of my professional contacts prefer it. Maybe professionals and adults prefer Twitter because it is simple and self-explanatory. Whereas professionals and adults might have felt as if there was too much to learn to be effective on Facebook and MySpace, Twitter only has one application. To the younger gen, Face. and My. have the draw of being incredibly personalized and full of hidden secrets to explore. There probably hundreds of thousands of apps and Facebook clubs/groups you can poke through in your spare time. And because each “friend” has many different kinds of content on his page, its more compelling to sift through, believing you will find something interesting to comment on. Twitter, on the other hand, doesn’t offer much room for exploration. You only have one kind of content (tweets), and if you have nothing to “tweet” about today, there’s no sense signing in.
I can go on and on with why Twitter is not satisfying to me, and maybe some in my generation fall in line with that.
But I think the key point is: Twitter comes off as all business and over simplified with little ability to personalize the experience. I’m not surprised that it doesn’t strike a chord with the younger gen, as it was clearly not developed for them.
Twitter is (often) about connecting with strangers.
Facebook is about connecting with friends (or friends of friends.)
Young people aren’t all that interested in connecting with strangers and as other have mentioned, have more face time with their real world friends and often larger groups of real world friends.
Hence the lack of appeal of Twitter to them.
For now.
Not surprised that college kids can’t see the need for of Twitter. They have grown up in a “me” society where the web sites they want are based on promoting themselves (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs).
Twitter doesn’t have a large section where you can put such “important” info as your fave TV show, rock band, or marriage status. You cannot buy a friend a drink on Twitter or play useless games.
Twitter is for making connections and getting a message out – about yourself or your business. I have used it to great success and made world wide connections. The youth today want more than 140 words to say what they want.
Just remember..just as MySpace has faded so will Facebook.
Many people who use Twitter effectively use it to create relationships & get freelance work. As many have already alluded to, college students have very little use for this so I’m not shocked that they’re not using it.
I use Facebook, but I’m not going to get a new business contact on Facebook like I have over and over on Twitter.
Facebook is for the people you know. Twitter is for the people you WANT to know.
One more comment….
Twitter’s value as a marketing/communications tool is in creating/connecting with a very targeted community. It can be large (Lance Armstrong) or small depending on the issue/topic you are building your followers and those following you.
And it is truly is a vehicle where you have to use it to truly understand how it works an therefore understand its value.
I agree with the basic premise in prior posts…students are not in a position to need or see the value of Twitter. YET!
Marcy Larson VP Marketing, e7sports