I've just read this article over at BrandRepublic. It's about a 15-year-old kid's report on the teenage demographic - one that happened to cause a bit of a shake up. It sums up some of my intuitions about Twittering and how some marketing/ad folk have kids down in general. Read the article before you read on!
Here's a link to full report which caused all the shock. He's like the Anti-Christ of Web 2.0. The key paragraph for me is this:
"Teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realise 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 realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their 'tweets' are pointless."
Elegantly put.. this kid could go far! Though, I think he could have replaced 'teenagers' with 'people' and he wouldn't have been far off. Discussing this with mates, it seems that other than the ability to follow famous people, there isn't much Twitter offers that facebook doesn't. I'm not saying it's without it's uses; it's ideal for individuals wishing to keep in touch with colleagues and do some industry networking. Some of you may know it worked a treat for Aston Kutcher ('cos people like to feel close to celebrities and following their Tweets lets them do that) - but I think some people may be living in a bubble if they think it is the future of advertising. No one wants to feel close the the manufacturer of their toothbrush for god's sake (see the Phillips Twitter campaign, which despite being a lovely idea, only averaged around 20 tweets a day - a bit of a flop).
Next up let's consider Delicious.com - the social bookmarking site (it lets you bookmark cool sites and the most bookmarked come up on the front page, accessible for others). You'll probably have seen the icon next to any blogs/newspaper articles you've read online, along with a plethora of others like so...
It's that little blue battenburg cake one (awful logo isn't it?). Well, when I went on there today - for what I admit was my first time - out of the top ten most popular sites bookmarked, one was a porn site (the top one at that), one was something about landing on the moon, and the other EIGHT were about either Web Design or Social Networking itself - which, quite frankly, suggests that the only people using this thing are marketing execs and web developers themselves. Take a look:
How bloody ridiculous. It's got some way to go I think. (NB. these aren't just the most popular under the tag 'social media' these were the most popular full stop).
I'm sure this won't by my last say on the matter, and I may well be forced to eat my words, but I suppose untill I get past the doors of an advertising/marketing agency and into the office where the numbers are crunched, I won't know what kinda return clients get on social networking campaigns. And on that suitably hesitant caveat, I shall leave you.
My next post will hopefully be on that new 'positive thinking' VW spot which has been met with a fair bit of confusion!
A bad VW ad by DDB? No way!
