L&S Unscripted

I had the honor of attending the AAAA Media Conference in March and everyone was a-twitter.  DOmedia was using Twitter to get people to their trade show booth.  The AAAA’s were using twitter to update attendees.  Attendees were using twitter to keep up with colleagues throughout the conference.  In this group of industry leaders, it felt as if Twitter was taking hold and tweeting was  just a part of everyday life.

But then we sat in on a few demographic panels.  There were three groups broken out by age; 20-30 years old, Baby Boomers, and Women 25-54.  Each of the panels had 30 minutes to discuss their media consumption habits, daily rituals, and what they felt was lacking in the industry.  This is where it got interesting. 

I have to admit that I was surprised to hear the youngest panel express distain for Twitter.  Not one of them used it, and one had never heard of it.  To this group, twitter is time consuming and disruptive.  They do not care what their friends ate for dinner, or what they are watching on television at that moment.  Besides, Facebook has the same technology and they are already there every day; why Twitter?

No surprises that the Boomer generation had never heard of Twitter and said they would never spend any time tweeting or following.  Not with their family and definitely not a brand.

The women’s panel was made mostly of working moms.  As a working mom, I have a twitter account.  I have to admit the account is mostly due to my career path and i probably wouldn’t have one if I was not working in the media industry.  I rarely tweet and follow a handful of interesting people.  Apparently I am not the norm.  This panel of women were active tweeters.  They follow their friends and family, and would be interested in tweets from a brand IF (and this is the key word) IF the tweet was timely, personal, and relevant.  They are a busy group and want technology to make life easier.  They want to keep up with friends, but often time do not have time for a 15-minute chat.  They want to know what is going on outside of their homes, but do not have time for a full newscast.  They want to know what is happening in the community, but do not have time to scan the newspaper.  

Keep in mind that this was a small panel of 7-10 people and not a true representation of each demographic group, but it did provide insight and provoke discussions among the people at my table and in the office.   I guess the biggest take away for me was nothing new.  No revelations, just confirmation on one of the basic foundations of strategic planning.  Know your customer.  Know who they are, what they do, where they go, and (most importantly) what they want from you.  Sounds easy enough, right?   

Why do you Twitter? 

Twitter Name: kkeys