Have you ever wondered what teens are thinking? Have you ever cared? The digital culture of teens and college students is valuable information for marketers who are targeting this age, or wanting to stay current with trends in communication. At Tintero Creative, we’re lucky to have some amazing interns who can give us this insider’s perspective:
I will fully admit to you that I am one of those teenagers who is glued to her phone and constantly on social media. I have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, and I’m confident this list will increase as more social media sites come into existence. My generation, though, doesn’t really use social media to connect with friends on a personal level, much like older generations do. The mindset we have on social media is unique and a bit hard to understand, but it is one of the greatest ways to reach teenagers all the way up to adults in their late twenties. So I’ll do my best to give a little insight on teenagers to young adults uses and interests on each site.
Facebook is falling out of style for high school age and below, it’s kind of seen as an “old people” site where you can count on grandma commenting on every picture of you and your friends. But good news! If you’re trying to target college age kids, this is the place to go. More and more college students are constantly getting on Facebook in order to stay connected with their old friends from high school and also to post pictures of how much fun they’re having at their new school. My brother is a senior in college and that is the only site he goes on. If you want your business to be noticed on Facebook by college students it’s all about starting a page and getting kids to share your page. A recommendation from a friend of the same age on Facebook is a lot more eye catching than the paid advertisements on the side of the screen.
Oh, I looooooove Twitter. It is my most visited social media site and same can be said for my fellow teenagers. Twitter is a great place to reach high school students and you can reach multiple people at a time or on an individual level. With the power to tweet at someone whether they follow you or not is great for reaching out to new potential customers, and users are notified whenever they get mentioned. On another note, when I scroll through my Twitter feed, I scroll pretty fast and don’t fully read too many tweets UNLESS they are either funny or have a picture. These are the most eye catching tweets on Twitter for teenagers, and they could potentially gain your business’ tweets some retweets, which is great because then the tweet is exposed to all of that person’s followers and all of the sudden you’ve got a lot of teens wondering what business is tweeting this hilarious stuff, and soon enough your profile could be getting lots of views. And finally the most important note, I love Twitter so much because there are not a lot of adults on it, so keep your tweets fun, light and hip so that kids won’t feel like they’re following an adult page if they follow your business.
Instagram is popular among most all teenagers: 13 year olds all the way up to late 20s. It’s all pictures and that’s probably why it’s so fun. I mainly use Instagram to brand myself and create an image of myself, as materialistic as that sounds, it’s true. And I think it’s safe to say the same for most people on Instagram. So what better site to brand your company in the eyes of teenagers? Instagram is actually the site where I follow the most businesses; I like it because it keeps me updated on new merchandise as well as sales. Not only that, but I like when businesses post pictures of other things besides their merchandise, things such as the employees goofing off in the office. It shows the fun behind-the-scenes aspect of a company. Instagram is fun, so don’t be afraid to have fun with your posts, and keep your captions short! Remember, Instagram is nice because the picture to words ratio is low.
Snapchat
Snapchat is probably not the best social media outlet to market your business on simply because people can only see your photos if they accept you as a friend. I am not friends with any businesses on Snapchat. I follow Taco Bell on Twitter and people are constantly tweeting them screen shots of the snaps they have sent. But if you can find a way to make it work, you could be as successful as Taco Bell, because of the fact that it lets you connect with consumers on an individual level. Also, the ability to make a story allows you to reach all of your followers rather than just a few at a time.
Pinterest is where high school and college girls go to get ideas about their dream lives, such as dream houses, dream clothes, dream places, and fun ideas for crafts. If you make a Pinterest profile for your business, this is not really a site to directly promote your company, you can’t post advertisements made by yourself here, they won’t have an impact, they won’t get pinned, or even seen by anyone, and you’ll probably lose followers, if you’re only promoting your business through advertising, because that’s not what people go on Pinterest to see. BUT YOU CAN indirectly promote your business by posting things that have to do with your business. For example, if you are a landscaping company, find pictures of beautiful yards to pin or how-to’s for trimming bushes or maintaining your flower beds, then don’t be afraid to comment “we could do this for you” or “like this look? check us out” and add a link to your website.
MySpace
Honestly, don’t even try Myspace because not many high school or college-aged students are on there now. If you logged on, you might be able to find all of our profiles that we made in seventh grade, but you probably won’t find too many active profiles today.
LinkedIn is too mature for most teenagers, so you’re not going to find too many on LinkedIn. College students are probably just getting their profiles and are new to LinkedIn. In my mind, if someone is getting on LinkedIn, they are showing signs of maturing and getting ready to go into the workplace, so you can get more serious with these advertisements. Also, if you’re targeting the college-aged markets on here, they’re probably a little lost trying to make a name for themselves in the business world; focus on giving them someone to look up to.
Teenagers are paying attention on social media. It’s where we live, and LOL on a regular basis. Our generation is already making purchasing decisions and will continue to be a force in the consumer market as time goes on! If you’re not on social media, you’re almost invisible to millennials and teens!
– Maddy Patten, Aspiring Marketing & Advertising Genuis