2 Reasons Why Teens Prefer Facebook Over Twitter
- Image by Leonard John Matthews via Flickr
In a report released last month, study says that the younger generation gravitated more towards Facebook than Twitter and blogging. According to one15-year-old, “Twitter is lame.”
Released in the second half of 2009, another study says social networking has made teens and young adults more narcissistic, their walls usually peppered with everything that’s happening to them, good or bad.
There may be two reasons for these trends, and all of them tied to a teenager’s need to establish identity.
1. Teens see Facebook and similar social networking sites as a status symbol.
The adolescent years are a time of establishing identity and one way of doing that is by creating reputations. However, reputation is tied in with cliques, specific groups that they identify with, which in turn have objects that are unique to their culture. Facebook and MySpace serve as one of these cultural objects, status symbols that differentiate them from other cliques much like a designer sunglass or an exclusive club would.
Another thing, this shared cultural object is also used as a means of reinforcing not only their identity but also the clique’s support and affirmation of belonging. The immediacy with which they can feedback on Facebook—without limiting their rants and raves to Twitter’s 140-characters—reflect this mutually reinforcing aspect of their relationship.
2. The failure to adopt early on with Twitter may have something to do with rebellion.
Again, adolescence is all about setting themselves apart from parents and adults—people whom they consider as authority figures.
Twitter’s most frequent users are those 24 years and older. With teens, these may be part of the ‘them’ group, the adults, as opposed to the ‘us’ group. Adopting Facebook may also be simply tied to their need for their peers’ acceptance so where their friends are, there they are, too.
The failure of teenagers to adopt Twitter may also be because texting fulfills the need of real-time chatting with their friends.
So what does this mean for online marketers targeting teens and young adults?
Engaging them in the social platforms of their choice, particularly Facebook, is a foregone conclusion. There are some things though to remember when dealing with this age group.
1. Who speaks to them?
At their age, they’ll be trying out different identities and roles. Often, they’ll look to someone famous or known—people they admire like actors, rock stars, athletes, and the like—while they’re defining who they are. They’ll copy traits from and identify with people they approve of.
It goes without saying that the one they’ll identify with is someone they accept and whom their clique respects. Such things as the music they listen to, the movies they see, the videos they share, among others, are the usual markers to what they dig, so to speak.
The clique’s opinion also shapes its members’ decisions and marketers, besides knowing how to select spokespersons whose being resonates with this generation, must know how to generate buzz from just such a small population of teens who’re often their generation’s gauge for what’s “in” or “out”.
2. How will you engage them?
Teenagers are famous for their short attention spans; however, they’re also the ones most exposed to computers, video games, TV and other media that they associate with fun. This report on a Nielsen study says that teens are still traditional when it comes to media engagement, preferring TV, interactive apps, and online videos as their channels of choice.
One thing that the study notes is that their engagement with the Internet is below par owing to the fact that the medium is somewhat limited in interactivity—the one major factor why teens engage. This may be the reason behind the popularity of such Facebook apps as Mafia Wars, Farmville, and Café World; one that marketers would do well to remember.
The bottom line? The age-old mantra of what’s attractive, acceptable, interactive, and ultimately fun, are still keys to engaging teenagers in the real world and on the web.
All the best,
PS: Some helpful reads you may want to check out:
- Teens think blogging is about as cool as Rick Astley hits (arstechnica.com)
- Facebook, Twitter Use Skyrockets on Cell Phones (appscout.com)
I do agree with what you mentioned, “The age-old mantra of what’s attractive, acceptable, interactive, and ultimately fun, are still keys to engaging teenagers in the real-world and on the Web.”
With that, facebook will still be ahead over Twitter. I for one, I prefer facebook because I still can write beyond 140-character post (I thought it’s 130-character like the one on mobile phones). I have a twitter and a plurk, but I am still choosing to be with facebook due to its bells and whistles as compared to the two ‘limiting’ short-type blog sites have.
Jude Cartalaba´s last blog ..A Poem I Will Always Keep
That’s why for really serious online marketers, Facebook is one platform they really have to fully exploit beyond the wall statuses and the fan pages.
However, I believe the tri-pronged Twitter, Facebook and blog strategy is still one of the best social media marketing weapons that should be in every marketers arsenal–even when addressing the teens and young adult market–because all three drives traffic to where you want them to go as well as tell your target audience exactly what you want them to do.
Of course, optimizing particular pages in your website is the fourth cornerstone of doing business online, which is another thing marketers should have in their plans.
What’s funny is that I’m almost annoyed when people want to talk on the phone instead of tweeting me or facebooking me – lol! When did that changeover happen? I used to spend (waste) hours on the phone blabbing (connecting) with people. It’s much more fun now to connect with loads of people in the same span of time that I used to connect with just one. That phone time was often full of complaints about life issues. Maybe that’s why I love the brevity of creating coherent thoughts in 140 character or less. We busy bloggers don’t have time to chat with only one person at a time
Cheryl from thatgirlisfunny´s last blog ..soup served in a toilet bowl and other strange goings-on
What can I say, Cheryl, except: it’s a multi-tasking, fast-paced world we live in now. Spending hours on the phone, talking to just one person, is indeed so much a waste of time when we can communicate with 1000s others in just a few keystrokes.
And I agree about the appeal of 140-character posts for busy bloggers. Maybe the reason why teens are staying away from Twitter is that they have more time to write longish posts. What’s more, they can throw in watching TV and playing a video game while they’re updating their FB page. They don’t need to make sense while they’re at it, too, because they have a language all their own. We bloggers, on the other hand, need to at least be a tad coherent when we post anywhere.
Another funny thing about this recent ‘addiction’ of youth with social networking sites–they kind of project themselves as ‘celebrities’ that people need to go after for and get updated everyday, and even every moment.
A friend mine complained, that these youngsters are not even contented updating their status on fbs and twitters, even on SMS. It becomes annoying to a certain degree. My friend even remarked, he wouldn’t wonder that someone will place an fb status, or tweet or even send him a current status via SMS–that he or she is sitting on a toilet bowl; removing his or her bowel.
I agree on you that ’serious’ bloggers don’t just blog for the heck of doing so.
Jude´s last blog ..Aan Pineda- Eternal not Ephemeral
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