Twitter Caught Benjamin Button Disease

September 21, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis
Filed under: News, Social Media, Social Networking Demographics, twitter

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ComScore, the media research company, has now reported that the young population, 12-18, is actually growing at the fastest rates. It’s been common knowledge that Twitter was the network for old dudes. As a matter of fact, based on the charts, individuals aged 35+ even became a super-majority back in 2008 making up over 60% of the Twitter-sphere. While their “Twitter-share” has decreased over time, up until this summer they held on to a 50% majority.

ComScore credits celebrity tweeters with much of the youthful rejuvenation Twitter has seen in the past few months. More specifically they mention the Ashton v. CNN, first one to 1 million followers event. Whatever the circumstances are around Twitter’s reverse aging, this is changes a whole lot for businesses, politicians, organizations, and frankly, anyone that’s marketing themselves on Twitter.

Hyper-targeted followings will become even more important as online marketers try to increase their reach without wasting it. Twitter has now reached over 21 million US visitors which doesn’t even include mobile users – which is also likely more popular among the younger 12-24 demographic.

One thing we can count on is that the Benjamin Button affect has likely ended as I don’t foretell 0-11 year olds tweeting a whole lot….then again, you never know.