Are Millennials Still Hot Stuff? Understanding Emerging Consumer Audiences

Are Millennials Still Hot Stuff_ Understanding Emerging Consumer Audiences .docx

Marketing companies have been competing for the minds of millennials fiercely over the last few years – and for good reason.

Millennials represent about a quarter of the entire US population, and have over $200 billion in annual buying power. Though they have less discretionary income than Baby Boomers and older generations, they have a lot of influence – and are hard to reach with traditional marketing methods.

But are millennials still the hottest consumers out there? Or should we be focusing our efforts on a new generation of consumers? Here’s the scoop.

Millennials Are Still The Most Important Consumer Generation – For Now

Millennials are defined as individuals who were between 18-34 in 2015 by the Pew Research Center. They are just now entering the prime of their lives as consumers.

As millennials age, their income continues to grow as a generation. Most millennials are now out of college and working in professional careers, and millennials are the most educated generation to date.

This means that the buying power of millennials is only going to grow in future years, as they begin to start families and earn more discretionary income.

However, millennials will not stay at the top of the heap forever. As time goes on, Generation Z continues to grow – and a new generation of consumer is born.

Gen Z – The Largest Consumer Generation In History

Generation Z is defined as the “post-millennial” generation. While most definitions vary, it’s agreed that most Gen Z individuals were born around the year 2000 or later. This generation already makes up 25% of the population, and is forecasted to continue to grow.

As Gen Z becomes older, and younger people begin to enter the consumer market, they are likely to become the most highly sought-after consumer generation, just as millennials were before them.

Focus On Millennials In Marketing Efforts – But Don’t Forget About Gen Z!

How should brands market their products? Luckily, millennials and Gen Z both share a few common attributes. Consumers from both generations are tech-savvy and have quite a bit of influence on the market – and both Gen Z and millennial consumers do not respond well to traditional advertising methods.

While millennials should be the focus on most marketing efforts, Gen Z should not be overlooked. Brands should be using social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter to reach a younger audience, and should always be on the lookout for hot trends that could appeal to Gen Z consumers.

Conclusion

As time goes on, millennials will become less important as a consumer audience, and the importance of Gen Z will grow. So focus on millennials for now, but don’t forget about the younger generation.

Google+ is Going Through a Breakup

google plus

Google+ has been suffering from what many tech blogs and business publications are calling a “slow death”—its initial launch established the site as an attempt to be a fully-integrated social platform, with its multifaceted approach rivaling companies like Facebook, Dropbox, WordPress, and Skype.

However, after failing to gain both traction and users in the social media community, it recently announced that it will be splitting the platform into three different components: Hangouts, Photos, and Streams. Hangouts is a video chatting service that will remain independent of Google+, photos is a storage space for images that will be added to Google Drive, and streams covers the rest of the Google+ experience along with News and Blogger.

While the idea of a streamlined, all-in-one social media platform sounded like a good idea, perhaps it was the ambition of the venture that led to its demise; users considered the Google+ login to YouTube a nuisance, found the interface unaesthetic, and the whole system a cheap Facebook facsimile.

Google has finally compromised, maintaining the best aspects of Google+ like Hangouts and Photos, and has removed the Google+ sign-in on YouTube, much to users’ delight.

The moral of the story: Don’t put all of your digital marketing eggs in one basket, especially if your product is at risk of being disruptive—and not in the good way.

What Sparks Our Fire: Google+ taking the next step forward and making smart decisions in the face of a highly-publicized technological failure.

Say Thanks With Facebook

8b1de2b5-343b-4734-b3a0-66048db520a0-bestSizeAvailableWhat is the most important part of your Facebook experience? Your friends, of course. For that matter, Facebook has launched a new ‘Say Thanks’ feature to express your gratitude to friends, family, co-workers and loved ones. Say gracias by creating and sharing an animated slideshow of your shared Facebook history set to the tune of inspirational music. The slideshow gives you the chance to relive past moments with the person you select. You can edit photos and posts those that best represent your friendship. There’s no limit to how many personalized videos you can create and share. So, get moving, it might take you a while to thank all 1000+ of friends. And please don’t forget those bothersome ones who keep inviting you to play FarmVille. The new feature is similar to the year-in review videos Facebook offered at the end of 2013 that we all loved. How apropros, ‘Say Thanks’ came just in time for the Thanksgiving season.

What Sparks Our Fire:  The perfect Facebook feature to celebrate friendships on social media.

Will you be using Say Thanks? Create your personalized video card here.

Are We Planning Our Future Memories?

Cameras are powerful tools to control the memories we make. In a 2010 TED Talk, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner professor Daniel Kahneman, presented the idea that millennials see the present as an “anticipated memory.” In other words, when a person takes an Instagram picture, that person is both experiencing the present reality and actively shaping how that reality will be remembered in the future. As a result, many will argue they are betraying the present by not living in the moment. But, are the memories the real motive why the ‘Instagram generation’ is so addicted to capturing the moment?

Internet surveys indicate over 80% of social media posts to sites like Instagram, Twitter and others amount to “announcements about one’s own immediate experiences”. We post pictures of what we eat, drink, where we’ve been and calmly await for the next tsunami of likes. But what is it that makes us post those pictures on Instagram? Can’t we keep those for our private use? It is undeniable we like the attention but, why do we like the attention so much?

In 2012, Harvard University National Academy of Sciences conducted a study to assess how much people liked talking about themselves and why. The results is that Humans get a biochemical buzz from self-disclosure. We devote almost 40% of conversation sharing our own experience. Sharing personal information activates the reward areas of the brain. The same as we experience after sex, food or getting money. Talking about other people in contrast does not activate the rewarding part of the brain. What is most interesting is the findings also revealed people actually love self-disclosure if they knew people were listening. All of this goes along way toward explaining the appeal of self-promoting social-media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

What Sparks Our Fire: The power of self-disclosure on social media through pictures.

Do you agree with Daniel Kahneman’s statement or do you think this entire generation is sharing Instagram pictures with the ultimate goal of a social validation? We would like to hear your thoughts.

For My Next Trick, I Will Make This Message Disappear

Snapchat-Logo

Someone else has a toy, and Facebook really wants to play with it.

Several weeks ago, Facebook quietly shut down Poke, an app that was pretty much a clone of the monsterously successful Snapchat. Poke was released in 2012 and was touted as the next big thing in Facebook’s family of apps. However it was never on the same level as Snapchat, and in 2013, Facebook attempted and failed to purchase Snapchat with an offer to the tune of $3 billion.

It would seem that the Snapchat model is something Facebook desperately wants to get a toehold in, as evidenced by reports of a new app called Slingshot, which sends short video messages by tapping on the screen. The same reports caution that the app, while it has been in production for some months, may never be released.

Maybe it’s for the best. No one has yet managed to out-Snapchat Snapchat.

What Sparks Our Fire: It’s easy to tell what’s important in social media by the way that Facebook reacts to it.

Would you try out a Snapchat clone?