Young consumers are a notoriously elusive target demographic. This is because of the broad ranges of age groups and life stages that encompass the youth category (12 – 34 years old), the keen eye with which they judge the credibility of marketing messages and a difficulty in reaching them with a marketing message in the first place. The flip side of the coin is that the youth have significant buying power, are influential on the buying decisions within their family units and are often the trendsetters in society. This is clout that cannot be ignored.
Social Media has, to some extent, made the youth more accessible to marketers. Their natural digital literacy and love of social networks means that the media landscape has become less fragmented and that we have much better insight into where they are and what they are interested in. That said, a number of barriers and challenges to the successful use of Social Media for marketing remain. These tips will provide you with a starting point for considering how to reach the youth while ensuring that your brand message is not instantly rejected by them.
1. Don’t forget about Mobile
If there is one technological device that is familiar to the youth, it is the mobile phone. They have grown up with it as a tool for communication and the technology is growing rapidly. In fact, smartphones, once the accessories of business moguls and high earners, are becoming increasingly common among the youth mobile social networking is growing rapidly. MXit alone has 16.2 million South African users and 1.8 million users internationally. In addition, Facebook recently announced that their number of mobile users had exceeded 100 million. There are of course, challenges and concerns when it comes to reaching people through such a personal medium. However, provided you consider your approach carefully, this medium is a great way to maximise your use of Social Media to target the youth.
2. Video is a no-brainer
According to SearchEngineLand, the use of online video in Europe grew 50% last year and 30% of young people admit to using the Web as a tool to watch television or video. The reasons for this are obvious – without formal careers or pressure, they have more time to spend online seeking entertainment. Video provides them with exactly that. This provides the ideal opportunity for marketers, either to plug their brands subtly or to punt them directly but cleverly. Familiarity with traditional television advertising will ensure that there is less objection to this form of targeting.
3. Speak the right language
Despite what you might think, social networks were not created as a way for marketers to build relationships with the audiences they are trying to reach. In fact, quite the opposite – they are communities of people who know and trust each other. This is something about which the youth, as the owners and drivers of many of these networks, feel fairly strongly about. They are not there to be marketed at. As marketers trying to reach them, the only way around this is to minimise or eliminate the hard sell and focus on engagement tactics made sustainable by the value they provide to users. Focus on using a system of peer recommendation to drive your campaign and ensure that incentives exist to lubricate these channels.
4. Digital standards are higher
One of the frustrations for tech-savvy marketers is that great ideas often need to be dumbed down for a less tech-savvy target market. The great news is that when it comes to the youth, this is less necessary – something which affords us with the opportunity to try our hand at complex implementations that would be lost on the baby boomers. This reverse implication is that it’s more difficult to get away with, for lack of a better word, lame campaigns. That is not to say that the simplest social network apps and tools aren’t often the best, but rather that with this market, Social Media concepts are more likely to (to paraphrase from A Knight’s Tale) be weighed, measured and found wanting. Your concepts will have to be bigger and better if you’re hoping to impress this market.
With the youth market, Social Media concepts are likely to be weighed, measured and found wanting (paraphrased from A Knight's Tale).
5. Consider a different value structure
Without the constraints of debt, mortgages and spouses, a high proportion of young people’s income is disposable. However, ensuring that income is spent on what you’re selling means understanding the fundamental differences between perception and expectations among the youth and their seniors. There is more of a focus on instant gratification in this market – desires are impulsive and marketers need to capitalise while the opportunity is hot. Their priorities are also slightly different – young people like to be seen in a certain light by the people in their networks. Social capital is of premium importance and many young people will spend money to simply to be seen as cool, clever, funny or as attractive to their peers. This is particularly true of the younger section of the market. Often marginalised as a group, the youth also want to have their value acknowledged. They want to be addressed as adults (as opposed to feeling patronised) and they want to feel that you are meeting their needs as opposed to merely fulfilling your own. A foreign concept to many of us in the marketing machine, it’s not really a lot to ask in return for attention and potential brand loyalty.
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