Twitter is vastly under-represented by the US youth market, with most of its users aged between 25-54, according to new data from Nielsen. Despite Twitter’s huge growth, now reaching 10.7 percent of all active US Internet users in June, the microblogging site hasn’t been a hit with young people. From Nielsen According to Nielsen’s NetRatings […]
Twitter is vastly under-represented by the US youth market, with most of its users aged between 25-54, according to new data from Nielsen. Despite Twitter’s huge growth, now reaching 10.7 percent of all active US Internet users in June, the microblogging site hasn’t been a hit with young people.
According to Nielsen’s NetRatings panel of 250,000 U.S. Internet users only 16 percent of Twitter.com website users were under the age of 25 in June 2009. This comes despite the fact that under 25s make up nearly one quarter of the active US Internet universe, meaning that Twitter.com under-indexes the youth market by 36 percent.
Nielsen points out that the data only relates to direct use of Twitter.com (rather than through third party clients such as TweetDeck). However, the company pointed out in its blog that more than 90 percent of popular Twitter client Tweetdeck’s audience is over 25. Furthermore, Twitter.com’s reach is 6.6 percent for kids, teens and young adults, whereas it is 12.1 percent for those over 25; implying that adults are trying Twitter at nearly double the rate.
Meanwhile, Nielsen reports that the volume of Twitter mentions on blogs, message boards and forums has reached the same level as Facebook, a property four times its size, with much of this ‘buzz’ centred around major world events, causing traffic peaks and throughs.
07/08/2009
