While 99 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have profiles on social networks, only 22 percent use Twitter, according to a new survey from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network.
This is consistent with what some observers have said about Twitter's recent push from early-adopter territory into the mainstream: that it's catching on with a slightly older demographic than the teenagers and college students who formed Facebook's initial core.
But of those young people using Twitter, the survey found that 85 percent of them follow friends, 54 percent follow celebrities, 29 percent follow family members, and 29 percent follow companies--not stellar news for the brands and marketers that have flocked to Twitter as the latest "conversational" destination.
Still, the survey organizers put a positive spin on it.
"Twitter dominates the news, but clearly we're only touching the surface of its potential as a marketing vehicle," Participatory Media Network co-founder and chairman Michael Della Penna said in a release. "This is a classic 'glass half full' scenario for Twitter because it's clear that Gen Y has an appetite for social networking, but still hasn't fully embraced micro-blogging. There is a tremendous opportunity now for marketers to develop strategies to get this important group active on Twitter too."
Here's what is everywhere: social-network developer applications. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed by Pace and the Participatory Media Network say they have installed apps on their social-network profiles.
Stephen Colbert
(Credit: Comedy Central)Update at 7:19 a.m. PDT: Facebook comment added.
Stephen Colbert should consider naming Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as his running mate* in his quasi-legitimate presidential campaign; the social-networking site has been the political satirist's prime rallying grounds.
Sometime on Thursday night, a Facebook fan group for Colbert's campaign met its membership goal of 1 million Facebook members--and the group was founded just over a week ago.
The group, "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert" (the "T" stands for Tyrone, for the record) was started by a Facebook user shortly after The Colbert Report host announced that he was going to enter the presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina as a "favorite son." It's a take-off on the "1,000,000 Strong for Barack Obama" Facebook group, which has yet to crack 400,000 members after nine months. The equivalent Colbert group took just over a week to hit a million.
"Colbert-Zuckerberg '08" does have a nice ring to it.
Several blogs have asserted that this is the fastest-growing group in Facebook's history. I find that very easy to believe, but there is no official confirmation: Facebook says it neither tabulates how fast groups grow nor offers a central list of the biggest groups on the site. (Facebook execs presumably have other things on their mind, like this whole "Microsoft thing.")
On the more serious side of things, the light-hearted enthusiasm over Colbert's "presidential campaign" could be a sign that young American voters are getting sick of Election 2008's career politicians have already been plastered all over the media. The really scary part: there's still over a year to go in this race.
Meanwhile, Editor and Publisher reports that not only will the mayor of Columbia, S.C., declare this coming Sunday "Stephen Colbert Day" when the "favorite son" comes for a visit, but that polling firm Rasmussen has actually bothered to include Colbert in a telephone survey that pitted him against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani.
Nation, these are frightening times we live in.
*Yes, yes, I know that it probably breaks election law for the 23-year-old Zuckerberg to appear on a campaign ticket, and I also know that he's probably too busy taking over the world to bother with politics.
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