Boomers Getting Sweet on Tweets

In March of this year there was a 131% traffic growth spurt for the micro-blogging site Twitter with tweets nearly doubling from the previous month and almost reaching the ten million mark. That’s a whole lot of tweeting going on!

But why did Twitter suddenly become even more popular earlier this year – with its popularity continuing to grow?

The elders of our nation are now getting on the Twitter bandwagon, that’s why.

Not only has Twitter been all over the media of late, [cast your mind back to the day Michael Jackson went to moonwalking heaven] but it has been embraced by the media as a channel of communication. CNN’s Rick Sanchez uses Twitter on his show to relay the feelings of his viewers and also have an off-air dialogue with them; and it also made news some months back thanks to celebrities like Oprah, who just started tweeting April 17^th, [pretty late for a big celeb] Ashton Kutcher racing against CNN to see who could top one million followers, and Hugh Jackman offering $100K to a charity who tweeted him the most deserving reason. Behold the Power of Twitter!

But I think the reason Twitter is doing so well is because it’s so easy. Setting up an account in Twitter is a breeze and once you’re in the options are minimal, and thus not confusing.

Many potential bloggers have a hard time getting into blogging because they don’t know what to write about, but twitter dispels those fears – you max out at 140 characters, so getting writer’s block while micro-blogging is pretty difficult.

With so many younger people using Twitter, older generations are also finding it an easy way to keep in touch with their younger relatives, and although texting rules the roost with younger folk, aging Tweeters in their autumn years who don’t like to text from their cell phones can essentially text tweets from their computers. They can also set up their cell phones to receive tweets from others, and by using the direct tweets only option only the followers they chose can get their messages through.

And let’s not forget that Twitter is free.

The simplicity and zero price tag make Twitter almost irresistible and over time, as the platform is embraced by more businesses, charities, churches, groups – you name it – Twitter will surely evolve into a communications outlet in a way that Google evolved for search: unparalleled.

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