The Social Framework: How to Market to Digital Millennials
We currently live in the era of hashtagging, liking, sharing, blogging and digitally socializing. Many of us spend more time on our smart phones rather than face to face conversation. Technology is exponentially erupting and keeping up with the vast growth is anything but easy.
As Millennials become the largest single segment of our workforce, the technology they utilize is spreading to every sect of the professional landscape. Think for a second of the first thing you do in the morning when you wake up. Brew a hot cup of joe? Scramble up a hot breakfast? Turn on the morning news? We all have our routine, as do Millennials. In fact, almost 70% of them report that the first thing they do in the morning is check their social networking sites and mess around on their smart phone. As a B2C service provider now knowing mentally where young consumers are spending most of their day and conducting most of their business, there is no excuse to let yourself be digitally inept.
Tweet, hashtag, “like”, pin, wall post. If you are unfamiliar with most of these “social” keywords, then therein lies the problem. Tangible marketing platforms are becoming a thing of the past. Every company from self-employed real estate agents to Re-Max corporate headquarters is riding the wave of SMM. As previously stated, Forbes.com reports that 92% of marketers claimed that SMM was important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites. According to Social Media Examiner, 97% of marketers are currently participating in social media—but 85% of participants aren’t sure what social media tools are the best to use. The aforementioned 85% is a staggering statistic that we are obligated to make shrink.
Liken your delve into SMM to hanging out in a coffee shop. What do you do in a coffee shop? Drink coffee, relax, catch up on work, and hang out with friends or family. Now imagine you’re not in that coffee shop for relaxing and instead for looking for new clientele. What would you do? You wouldn’t bombard people and throw advertising in their face. “Here, take a flier.” “If you need this service, give me a call.” This is not the way to approach people (especially young professionals trying to socialize or relax in a coffee shop). Instead, politely engage in conversation. Break the ice. Make their acquaintance before you even think about pitching to them. The same foundation is true for social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Follow pages or groups where your target market will be. Comment on interesting postings. Share their posts. But most importantly, build rapport. Reach out and network to certain groups or individuals whom you wish to eventually acquire business from. Familiarize yourself with all digital marketing platforms available and go get ‘em!
