Outsource2Us shares the importance of using different social media platforms to effectively target each generation.
Social media still remains one of the most effective ways to connect with potential customers, however understanding how each generation uses the individual platforms can be the difference in creating a successful campaign. Outsource2Us shares the importance of using different social media platforms to effectively target each generation.
Millennials
Millennials are the most active generation on social media (94%), meaning they’re active on just about every platform available. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. As the most dominant generation on social media, Millennials are expected to spend over $1.4 trillion dollars online annually from advertisements on these platforms. Furthermore, TikTok and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms to successfully sell products. To connect with Millennials, it is important to keep your social media feed filled with images and short videos to maintain their interest. To further increase your brand’s success in online activity, it is recommended you seek an online influencer who represents your brand and the products you sell. Online influencers can carry thousands to millions of followers and heavily influence Millennials’ purchasing behaviours.
Generation X
Generation X has been recognised as the middle ground between Millennials and Baby Boomers. While this generation tends to use fewer social media platforms and for lower hours than Millennials, they tend to enjoy sticking to a few social media platforms more regularly; similar to Boomers. Generation X enjoys Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This generation prefers seeing videos, images, and sometimes memes. They enjoy using social media for entertainment, connecting with their local community, expanding a professional network, while also staying in touch with family. Unlike most Millennials, the easiest way to target Gen X is to appear completely professional, while still including information about products through images and videos, in order to maintain their attention or interest. Use Instagram or Facebook stories that are fun and easy, to keep your customers updated and informed. Be careful not to ignore this generation, as they follow behind Millennials in the most active on Facebook, with 81% of users checking their feeds daily.
Baby Boomers
The online behaviour of Baby Boomers with social media is fairly restricted and easy to target, especially when selling particular products adhering to them. This generation enjoys using Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. They are fairly similar to the way they act to Gen X; in that, they want to stay updated with their community and family. They are the least likely of the generations to connect with a brand naturally, however, they love blogs and lengthier videos; which can easily be incorporated into social media. This is due to the fact that this age group enjoys researching and focusing their attention for longer periods of time if they are interested in a product you are selling them. If you are aiming to target the Baby Boomers, it is strongly recommended you do this via Facebook, since 96% of this generation check the platform each week.
Recently, Outsource2Us held a virtual brand positioning workshop with one of our clients, Adam Guthrie, Founder of IFeelGood. IFeelGood is a digital publishing company that specialises in whole food plant-based eating and living. During this workshop, we clarified the brand positioning, defined the target markets, and created clear messages to engage with these potential customers across the relevant platforms. We could not stress enough how important it was to get this right!
This was Adam’s key takeaway from the workshop:
“After this workshop, it was extremely clear how important it is to create different messaging when targeting each of the generations. It is extremely valuable to understand how differently each generation responds to this content and more importantly how they are sharing this content with their close online communities.”
