Generation Z seems to be having a love-hate relationship with social media. While some have become obsessed with it, others are giving it up altogether. Gen Z refers to the group of people who were born in the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. A shocking 34% have revealed that they’re quitting social media while 64% have admitted they are taking a break from it, according to research from Origin.
Marketers who are looking to attract this demographic need to adapt. How do you change your marketing strategy to make sure this generation doesn’t keep scrolling? If the content you create is too slow or too difficult, then they’re going to forget about you. Here are some ways you can make your content capture their attention and keep it.
Include Sharing Buttons on Everything
You should make easier for the younger generation to engage with your brand. The average Generation Z spends between six and nine hours on social media. They like to use an average of five screens that they can use for different purposes. You want to add sharing buttons on everything.
Give them unlimited options. Consider Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other places. While it’s important to know where your readers hang out, you want to make your content shareable. They want to be able to share your content with their friends and family. Share buttons make it easy for them to share your content without having to go through several steps.
Make Your Headlines Big and Bold
Your headlines should stick to the point. You want to call their attention. You have to compete with thousands of brands on the Internet, so this generation has a lot of brands calling their attention. It takes three seconds to capture their attention, so you want your headline to be as big and bold as possible.
Don’t resort to clickbait techniques. You can lose readers and lower your rankings on search engines. But you still need to create a headline that’s eye-catching enough that they’ll want to click on it. Make sure your headline is honest and clearly defines the content of your article.
Use One Strong Call to Action
It’s important to make everything as clear as possible. This goes for your call-to-actions as well. Generation Z’ers don’t mind being told what to do. You want to make your call to action as clear and defined as possible, so they know what to do next. One way to have them turn away is to have too many call of actions at once.
Make Your Branding More Human
Don’t be afraid to make your content more human. This generation wants to make sure there’s a human being on the other end. While automated tools and AI technology is fine to use in some aspects, you want to make sure your brand has a human aspect to it. Put your face out there on social media with live-streaming video or talking about your brand on YouTube. You need to put yourself out there so you can reach out to this generation.
Focus on User-Generated Content
The next thing you should focus on is creating user-generated content. This generation want to have access to plenty of honest user-generated reviews and testimonials. You want to engage with them and encourage them to leave reviews and photos on social media. No one wants to buy a product from a company who only has a handful of reviews when another company has hundreds of user-generated content to look through.
Include Video as Much as Possible
Since this generation loves video content, then you should incorporate video marketing. The younger generation uses multiple devices to absorb as much information as possible. They don’t want to read long-form content without pictures and videos. Video marketing is the best way to catch their attention and retain it.
You should keep your videos as short as possible. The average length is one to three minutes. Include text, photos, and captions since most people tend to watch videos with the sound off. The beginning should attract their attention, but the entire video should keep them engaged.
Utilize Ads on Social Media
The younger generation has become accustomed to ads on social media. While 39% of teens agree that YouTube has too many ads, this video platform is still the most popular among this generation. Over on Instagram and Snapchat, only 11% of teens agree that there are too many ads on these social media platforms.
It should also be known that this generation has the shortest of attention spans. You have 8 seconds to capture a teen’s attention before they scroll by your ad. Your videos should be short enough to deliver impact. You should also create content in small formats.
Respect Their Privacy on Social Media
More Gen Z’ers are becoming super private on social media. They may have grown up on social media, but that doesn’t mean they want to share everything about their lives. Learning how to keep themselves safe is one of the positive effects of social media. It’s important for you to respect their privacy so your brand doesn’t come off as invasive.
One-third of teenagers are willing to share their personal information aside from their contact information and shopping history, according to IBM’s Survey Uniquely Gen Z. On the other hand, 61% of Gen Z’ers only feel comfortable sharing this information if they know they can trust the brand.
