Posts Tagged ‘millennials’

Sometimes I have email conversations (or IM or text or, GASP, live conversations) with people and I think afterwards, “now THAT should be a blog post.” So here is a recent chat about Twitter and what it should and shouldn’t be, and whether or not it should be worrying about marketing to Millennials. Only change I made was the email addresses for Twitter ID’s

The conversation

@shabernator: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265060-2.html?tag=mncol;title

@thejdrewfeldman: Thanks! Cool article, but I think that people who take the viewpoint that Twitter is solely a constant-status-updating attention-starved craze are missing some of the major benefits and uses of Twitter. And they probably didn’t use it for too long before coming to a conclusion

@jeffhilimire: My correlation is in 1995, most people thought email was about sending jokes around.

@shabernator: I think its interesting to think of it from the Gen Y perspective… how can twitter make them feel unique?

“For the Millennials to make the move, Twitter will have to find a way to integrate the self-branding features MySpace gave birth to and Facebook nurtured. Even if they’re packaged in 140 characters or less.”

@jeffhilimire: I think its interesting, but Twitter just isn’t about that for me. It’s completely different in almost every way than Facebook and MySpace.

My opinion is, people who don’t understand Twitter feel like it has to copy those social networks to be successful. I’m more of the viewpoint that Twitter isn’t supposed to be the size of Facebook or MySpace, its not your social world all wrapped up in a nice package like Facebook. It’s a new way to communicate, not a new social network.

If Twitter wants mass adoption and global domination, perhaps it needs to shift what its doing. But just the same way that we’d never sit here and say “for wiki’s to reach Millennials they need to be more like full functioning intranets,” we shouldn’t do the same thing to Twitter. Wiki’s have their place and I think Twitter has its place too, though it might not be what we all think it should be.

Also, I’m about to blog this conversation

By Jacqueline Petty

Echo Boomers, Generation Y, Millennials … these are some of the terms used to describe people born between 1979 and 1997. I’m a member of this generation, and learned a lot about my cohorts at Engauge’s Lunch and Learn: Marketing to Millennials.

According to the presentation, the top priority for millennials is to get rich. Our generation was coddled, yet empowered by our parents. We stay on top of the latest trends. Time is of the essence, and we want everything now. Millennials are very skilled at multi-tasking. There isn’t a prime time for us to consume media, but we “snack” or take bits and pieces what we want throughout the day.

After learning these facts, I understand why marketers struggle to effectively target millennials. Here are some tips to help you talk to my generation:

1. Be authentic. Try to keep a pulse on the trends, but never stray from your brand’s core values. If you constantly change your message, we’ll never trust you.

2. Be quick. We don’t have all day to listen to your message. Get to the point already.

3. Be open. If your brand made a huge boo boo, own up to it immediately. Make sure you’re readily available 24-7 to address concerns.

4. Be social. Use social media to learn what people are saying about you. Don’t try to police the conversation. Listen and respond candidly.

5. Be helpful. Tell us why you’re better than the competition, and how you can best help improve our daily life.

6. Be responsible. Millennials like to make a difference. If your brand is a good corporate citizen, you should tell that story as often as possible.