SpongeBob Caters to Its Core Audience With Twitter Promotion (Huh?)

Nickelodeon is creating a made-for-Twitter story to promote a new episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants” next week.

“The Ice Race Cometh: A Twitter-Tale” will be a series of trash-talking tweets and photos from various SpongeBob characters preparing to compete in “The Bikini Bottom Great Sleigh Race.” The Twitter promotion will run July 12-15 in preparation for the premiere of the new SpongeBob episode called “Frozen Face Off” on the 15th.

SpongeBob and Twitter? It seems like kind of an odd fit. Young people have not traditionally been a stronghold for Twitter. Last year Pew said that only 8 percent of online American teenagers use Twitter (but that data is kind of old at this point).

Obviously anticipating that skepticism, Nickelodeon’s Roland Poindexter said in a press release statement, “SpongeBob’s fan base is so broad that about a third of its audience is adults, so we wanted to extend the show’s magic to new places like Twitter so those fans can experience it.”

The official SpongeBob Twitter account is here.