Teens certainly don’t. That’s according to a new report by an inside source. The 15-year old in question is an intern from Morgan Stanley’s London office and he was asked to write a report on teenagers’ likes and dislikes. The results are causing a stir, and made front-page news in the U.K. You can read the details for yourself, but the take-away for social marketers looking to reach teens could perhaps temper the current buzz around these new media outlets.
On the other hand, teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realize that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). In addition, they realize that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are pointless.
At a recent July 4 family gathering, I was in the presence of 4 generations, over 35 people, and only 5 of us had Facebook profiles. No one confessed to using Twitter in my informal survey.
Contrast that with news last week from Buckingham Palace: Her Majesty the Queen is now on Twitter, albeit for its news service potential, and not necessarily to follow Ashton Kutcher. What’s my point? Only that the truly successful social media efforts are targeted and carefully considered. Don’t let the craze fool you into thinking it’s a magic bullet; as in any communications effort, there is no one-size-fits-all answer.