The Millennial Generation, promotion and pitfalls

The rules of marketing have changed dramatically in the Web 2.0 era and while the capabilities that advancements in technology have brought cannot be ignored, their impact should not be viewed without acknowledgement of the enormous changes in social attitudes which have evolved with them.

Foursquare, pioneers of utilising crowd marketing

Perhaps the greatest levels of social change have occurred within the millennial generation, adults now in their twenties whose lives have developed concurrently with the evolution of the internet. They are able to remember a time as children when the internet had little to no fixture to today where its influence has grown to an extent whereby for many it dominates both work and social lives.  

This segment coveted heavily by businesses for their high levels of disposable income and trend-setting capacity, behave in radically different ways to the previous generation, utilising technology and brands in ways never previously witnessed. 

Perhaps the most radical departure from a marketing perspective is the willingness to openly share information with not just a close group of friends and family but a far wider audience of online followers whose personal connection is considerably less well established. With Facebook friends and twitter followers numbering into the hundreds individual tastes are shared with a far wider audience than ever before leaving a digital imprint which will outlast even their own existence. 

Although personal content remains a leading priority for the majority of social network users, it is evident that this generation is happy to align itself more strongly with brands than ever before. This extends far beyond the personal identifiers of clothing and FMCG to promote wide ranging products and services for travel and entertainment, technology, media and even utilitarian products including mobile phone providers and educational institutions.                                   

                 

Whilst this increased sharing capacity and acceptance of products in to their personal world obviously has great value for brands, the millennial generation brings two personality traits which need to be well understood in order to maximise the possible benefits which may be reaped from the increased capacity for crowd based promotion.

Stratos, a defining attention grabbing campaign.

Firstly a short attention span, rather than purely a symptom of laziness or a deterioration of mature behaviour, short attention within the online environment is born largely out of necessity. With such a huge quantity of information being streamed through, speedy filtering of key words, visuals and linked content has become a real necessity in the toolkit of this generation of web users and adept marketers have been quick to adapt with attention grabbing campaigns.                             

Brands need to understand that now more than ever their content needs to be assessed for its relevance, value and ease of understanding, however achieving high initial impact is now a key contributor to a successful campaign.

Secondly is insight, with far greater brand acceptance among the millennial generation there is also conversely a downside of far more visible brand rejection. Those companies whose message is viewed as insincere, whose promotion is seen as cheap are at far greater risk of exposure, with ridicule for poorly contrived campaigns now being commonplace. For example Waitrose’s recent twitter campaign which invited users to incorporate the hashtag #Ionlyshopatwaitrosebeacause showed a clear lack of insight given Waitrose public brand perception combined with the main demographic engaging on twitter.

 

What is clear then is that although the communication channels with millennial audiences are far more open than with any previous generation, this should not make the message any less considered. With such wide streams of conversation, understanding the language to use and the way in which it is delivered is now more important than ever!

Sam Wolf , Digital Account Manager, Liveinsights

An Introduction to Speaking The Customer's Language

Nowhere has speaking the customer’s language been more important than on social media! We have moved from an era of preparing carefully crafted marketing communications to one of having ‘spur of the moment’ conversations where we need to be instantly on the customer’s wavelength!  Scary? It certainly seems that way - what if we miss the point they are making or say something in the wrong way? We could lose the connection with them forever! 

Well thankfully because we now know so much about linguistics, we can learn how to spot customer language patterns straight away and ‘match’ them in our responses - creating instant rapport!

Over the next few months we will be introducing a series of key language patterns that can be picked up from social media tweets, posts and comments and from customer blogs to help you to make sure you are ‘speaking the customer’s language’.

Move Toward or Move Away From conversations?

 ‘Move Towards language is about what customers what do want in their lives. ‘Move away from language’ is about what customers don’t want in their lives and it’s important not to mix them up! If you see customers talking about what they would like to have, get, gain, achieve, include or about results, benefits respond with the same type of language. If you see them talking about what they would not like to have or do, what they want to avoid, get rid of or exclude or about problems then use this type of language in your responses. In short use the same type of language as they are - don’t try to change them from one to the other!

Take a look at the following examples:  

Towards – They are thinking about what they do want;

Is it sad that I get really excited to drink my Starbucks? It makes my day.

Its friday gat to av some bottles of HeinekenIf only I could reach for the cake through the laptop screen.

I just want lots and lots of chocolate for Xmas (Cadbury)

Focus on what you can help them achieve and use words like get, have and actions that will move them towards pleasure. 

Away From – They are thinking about what they don’t want:

Feel like such a loser when I get my coffee & walk out of Starbucks instead of busting out my laptop & working on my "novel. 
“Full fridge? No problem. Store your beers outside to keep them extra cold.(Heineken) .....and hope they don't get thieved....... ;-D 
Don't like chocolate as a drink but eating it totally different experience altogether. I don’t like dairy milk anymore what have you done to it?

Focus on what you can help them to avoid and use words like won’t have to, don’t need to and actions that will move them away from pain

Do this and customers will feel that you are really empathising with their way of thinking Watch this space for more social media communication tips to come.

Di Tunney, Managing Director at LiveInsights

Visuals in Social Media Marketing, a 2012 perspective.

If in 2011 the online buzz was all centred around “checking in” and providing information on your whereabouts via social media then 2012 has seen the focus move towards the visual.

While preceding years saw an emphasis on copy whether through blogging, tweets or status updates the last  12 months has seen a major shift towards pictorial content. Two major success stories being Instragram and Pinterest, sites firmly focus around the sharing of pictures within online communities.

Facebook's timeline launch puts photos’ right at the centre of it's user experience brands can  make use of several new features that rely heavily on bold graphics and visual storytelling: the cover photo, the timeline itself, and larger images on wall posts.

A 2012 study by ROI Research indicates that when friends engage with each other over social media it's the pictures they enjoy most with 44% stating that they would be more likely to engage with brands who use photo's as their prime communications platform.

                                        

For brands in a time of information overload, with news feeds and updates containing streams of irrelevant information visuals act like trailers to users for what they represent, providing a snippet of easily digestible information to convey a message or invite a user to delve deeper into the brand

A key strength of the visual medium has been the ability to create a user led community around a product, with several key FMCG brands having strong successes through inviting users to send pictures of themselves using the product in return for prizes.

Dunkin Donuts going as far as to highlight their fan of the week on their display photo.

 The American rock group The Smashing Pumpkins took the concept of community building through visual representation one step further with a social media campaign titled “Imagine Oceania.” Fans were challenged to design artwork for the band's new album and promote the pieces through sharing across social networks, with selected fans having their work turned into limited edition posters .

The campaign showed an astute level of awareness in understanding that a large segment of their audience were tech savvy enough and sufficiently passionate about the group for the final content to be sufficiently high quality enough to produce print runs.

General Motors were quick to recognise the shifting site usage of its younger demographic and the need for restraint in marketing across across social platforms created an Instragram account that instead of showcasing glossy pictures of the latest car models embraced the nature of the platform. Presenting a series of arty industrial themed shots showcasing the company’s impressive production facilities and Detroit heritage.

To generate greater traffic, they created a competition offering the winner a free trip to the UK and to be the next “GE Instagrapher” shooting photos at a General Electric Jet Engine plant.

However brands choose to achieve it, what is clear is that visual identity creation is now vital to any profile. With search engines now basing ranking on conversations and sharing within social media in addition to website hits embracing visual content, clearly offers huge benefits through it's proven record of generating engagement.  The old maxim a picture is worth a thousand words never rung truer.

Sam Wolf , Digital Account Manager, Liveinsights