eMarketers tweeting to themselves, not consumers

Who Finds Twitter More Effective, Advertisers or Consumers?

AUGUST 4, 2009

Consumer awareness remains low.

Though Twitter is currently a media darling, only 8% of advertisers and consumers think it is a “very effective” promotion tool, according to June 2009 data from LinkedIn Research Network and Harris Interactive.

The research, which included surveys of US advertisers and Internet users, found that while 83% of advertisers were familiar with Twitter, only 31% of Web users were.

Naturally, younger respondents were more familiar with the microblogging site. Only 11% of 18-to-39-year-old advertisers did not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion on its value, compared with 20% of advertisers ages 40 to 49 and 21% of those 50 and older.

Among Internet users, 55% of 18-to-34-year-olds said they were not familiar enough to have an opinion, compared with 80% of those 55 and older.

In terms of Twitter’s effectiveness for promoting products and ideas, both advertisers and consumers were tepid.

In addition to the 8% of advertisers who said Twitter was very effective for promotion, 50% said it was somewhat effective. More than three in 10 (34%) said it was not very effective and 8% felt it was not effective at all.

Among consumers, 8% said it was very effective, 42% believed it to be somewhat effective, 31% said it was not very effective and 19% felt it was not at all effective.

The takeaway: While marketers, advertisers and members of the media have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, the average US consumer has not. And without broader consumer acceptance—not to mention awareness—it can’t be considered an effective marketing tool.

If this never happens, all the tweets in the world won’t make much difference.

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