Are consumers running away from us?
If you ask a 16-19 year old what their favourite social media platform is, their answer is not likely to be Facebook or Twitter, despite these two still dominating the plans of most marketing directors. Instead, their answer will probably be Snapchat, Instagram or an app you may have never even heard of! This is relevant because the social media channels teens are using today are the ones that the rest of the population will be using tomorrow.
There is no shortage of social media surveys on how teens use social media – but many of them show conflicting results. What is commonly accepted is that Twitter and Facebook’s usage is declining whilst Instagram and Snapchat users are increasing. Instagram have recently reported more monthly active users than Twitter! That is quite an achievement when you consider how new Instagram is compared to Twitter.
So why are consumers (particularly teens) moving away from what were the ‘fundamental’ platforms? I think the answer is that these young consumers are deliberately running away from marketers and there is a danger that they will keep running from us: Why?
We’ve stopped being social. Social media has grown from pushy direct advertising to genuine marketing stories. Consumers want to see real brands that are human and cater for emotions as well as needs. Whilst it’s always great to have an obvious call-to-action, it can make your marketing efforts seem less genuine. It’s also a common mistake to forget to actually be social. Brands focus too much on pushing out content, they forget to respond and engage with others. No one will attend your party if you don’t attend theirs. This is especially relevant to start-ups and SME’s.
Our adverts irritate rather than engage. Whilst marketers may love the advertising capabilities of Facebook and Twitter – consumers don’t. We generally dislike it when we’re watching our favourite show and then the adverts come on, so why would we like it disrupting our news feed? It has never been more important to tailor messaging per platform and ensure it reaches the right audience. Just because Instagram offers advertising, it doesn’t mean your business should use it. And if your business does take advantage of this feature – at least get creative to fit the style of the platform. Not all posts need to be directly related to what you offer.
New platforms make it easier to avoid us. In the past year, we have seen the popularity of ‘dark social’ platforms rise such as; WhatsApp and Snapchat. These platforms go back in time to the way we used to communicate online – instant messaging (I used to be OBSESSED with MSN). This suggests that consumers prefer platforms that are pretty much untouched by marketers. Snapchat is a great example for this. Snapchat is predominantly used by 16-24 year olds, but it has limited opportunities for marketers. Snapchat has a news feature called Discover. This has so far had little success - I have never used it and neither has anyone I know. They also introduced the face augmentation feature which was really cool when it was first released. I’m now bored of it – especially when they started charging to use some of the faces.
The lesson for marketers is that consumers will actively avoid ads and the only route to success on social media is to create genuine and engaging story-telling content that will appear in the feeds of users. I don’t think advertising such as; banners and paid for ads should begin popping up on Snapchat and Whatsapp or their users will run to the next platform to avoid them. We should instead find ways to speak to and not at the consumers.
We’re not wanted at the party, if we want to be welcomed then we need to play by the rules and avoid being the bore that expects everyone to listen to us.
And why do teen’s social media movement matter? Check out my blog in Digital Marketing Magazine explaining how younger people lead the social media trends.
