Knowing your demographic is key to a successful marketing campaign. There is no simpler way to put it: if you have a product that you wish to market, you have to know how to reach out to the type of people you perceive as customers. While this activity may have been trivial and easy in the past, in the age of social media, it is nothing short of a real full-blown science! Worry not dear reader, for our experts here at BBox have gathered all the useful info on how to interact with different generations on social media. So sit back and plan your next campaign with our useful hints!
Generation X
The oldest of them all, Generation X (born c. mid 1960s-early 1980s) was often dubbed the MTV Generation or the “latchkey” generation (due to the fact they were growing up in the period of increased divorce rates and decreased adult supervision) are gold mines! They are surely the ones with the highest income, so marketing to them is a great idea! However, they are often the ones that are most interested in buying from trusted brands that they have been following for a very long time. Even if you make it to their trusted brand list – it’s no use! While they usually do their researching online, the purchasing is done offline, so make sure that reviews are on your side.
Finding them online, however, is fairly easy. An astonishing number of 80% of them report that they use Facebook on a daily basis, but be aware that most of them are forgotten accounts. As for Instagram, only 8% of them report that they use it on a daily basis. If you do decide on reaching them with some fresh content, try somewhere around 8 pm, since that is their preferred time of surfing and make sure to appeal to their nostalgia!
Generation Y
Here we arrive at the most talked about generation in the last couple of years – the Millenials (born c. early 1980s-early 2000s). It is not rare that you will turn on your TV and hear some analyst blaming the Millennials for various ridiculous things such as the death of the marriage, home ownership or whatever is in focus this week. The truth is, Millenials were brought in the period of increased economic instability and that horrendous thing called The WEC in 2008. So it’s not surprising that they’re the ones that are most worried for their material and financial well- being.
Good thing is – they adopted social media in their early teens making them more adept at using various platforms. They are less likely to be found on Facebook than The Generation X since only 70% of them report daily use of Facebook, but you can most definitely find them on Instagram or reach them with a YouTube video since almost 60% of them are active on it a daily basis. When trying to reach them, do keep in mind that they are the ones who are the most vocal about their values and ideals.
Generation Z
Here we arrive at the last generation – the Generation Z (born c. mid 1990s-mid 2000s). The fact that they don’t even have a nickname yet tells you that they are a fresh untapped market just sitting and waiting to be explored, and there’s a reason for that. Since they are the first ones that actually grew up with social media, the result is that their attention span is no more than 8 seconds. Simply put, if your message is too slow it will get discarded. So when trying to reach them, try as much as you can to be quick, snappy and original. Also, they are the ones that are the most versatile in the usage of smartphones, so apps are definitely a wise choice.
As for social media usage, they are the first ones that make a break from Facebook. It’s not that they don’t use it mind you, it’s just that they mostly prefer to hang around on Instagram with 50% of them reporting they use it daily, while only around 25 percent of them are on Facebook. One more interesting fact is that they don’t really care that much for the celebrities but instead for the influencers and their opinion, so it’s always a good idea to have one on your side.
Conclusion
Choosing a correct strategy is truly a difficult endeavor, especially when the product is aimed at all three generations. Yes, they do have overlapping characteristics but it’s easy to entangle oneself in a labyrinth of unsuccessful strategies. It is imperative to know the habits of each generation in order to fully reach them online. We hope that our advice will take you a long way, but make sure to listen to your demographic yourself and learn as much as you can from the feedback!
