Twitter’s Lost Demographic

There is a lot of hype about Twitter these days.  You can’t watch a news program without hearing about it in some form.  The 18-34 year old crowd has been the demographic pushing the social media phenomenon all along, but this demographic seems less enthused about Twitter than the rest of us.  According to a recent Harris Interactive poll 74% of 18-34 year olds have a Myspace and Facebook page, but only a mere 8% of 18-34 year olds use Twitter.  Meanwhile 24% of 55 plus have a Facebook or MySpace page (probably mostly to communicate with their grand kids).  It makes me wonder if the 18-34 demo has moved on to some other new and better social networking device while the rest of us are busy twittering away.  When will twittering no longer be cool?

Furthermore, more than 60 per cent of Twitter users have stopped using it a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research.  MySpace and Facebook have retention rates near 70% while Twitter’s retention rate is a mere 40%.
The social and cultural drivers of Twitter will continue to drive the growth of social media especially among the 18-34 demographic.  It will be interesting to see how Twitter evolves to attract more of a loyal following.  If it doesn’t evolve I can’t see how it can sustain itself in the long term.