How Publishers Should Reach and Engage Millennials
Even Michelle Obama has chimed in on the matter.
The nation’s 75,400,000 millennials dwarf baby boomers and gen X’ers alike. Born during the digital revolution, the content they consume–and how and where they consume it (case in point: 81% of millennials sleep with their phones next to their beds)–is like no other generation.
But the question remains: how can–and should–digital publishers reach and engage this important demographic?
The answer? Social media.
To acquire and engage millennials, publishers need to be where millennials are. According to a study by The Media Insight Project, 61% of millennials tend to accidentally bump into desirable news rather than actively seek it out.1 And the best channel to have content accidentally encountered is through social media where 90% of millennials are part of at least one network.2
Facebook
The most effective social platform for publishers to reach and engage millennials is unquestionably Facebook. Although its popularity with this generation has been wavering, it is a trusted means for news discovery with 88% of millennials obtaining their news from Facebook and 44% saying they do so several times per day.3
Facebook is a popular destination for news consumption by millennials because they view it as a pre-filtered news aggregator. In essence, they want to know what news is important to their direct social circles and tend to assume the news shared by their friends is relevant to them. In fact, 76% cite a desire to know what their friends are doing, discussing, and reading as their main reason for visiting the social network.4 Similarly, 70% report they regularly watch or read news stories or headlines they encounter in their news feed.5
Facebook is also an ideal sharing platform, and as a result millennials help with content distribution. Outside of publications directly posting links to articles within their own accounts, a large portion of articles appear on Facebook through millennials; 42% report they regularly post or share news content on Facebook.6 Similarly, Facebook is also designed to easily like, comment, and share posts.
Snapchat
Snapchat is an incredibly popular social network with millennials, ranking as the third most popular social app, trailing Facebook and Instagram (a less publisher friendly network).7 Snapchat is especially popular with the ever sought after college student, with 70% reporting they snap at least once per day.8
What’s more, Snapchat has tailored itself to be a primary content distribution center for publishers to reach millennial audiences through its feature dubbed Discover.
Discover is a section of Snapchat that allows users to explore streams of editorial, video, and interactive content through full screen pop-ups from publishers. Considering the distribution opportunity, there has been high publisher demand.
For their 20 publishing partners, Discover is a particularly effective way of reaching millennials; Discover leads to high levels of visibility with some publishers reporting over a million views per day, and Cosmopolitan regularly averaging 3 million.9 Further, in a Variety and Defy Media survey, roughly 47% of millennials report using Discover at least once per day.10
Additionally, Discover is also quite profitable for publishers. Discover is monetized with unobtrusive ad placements between content pieces, with revenue being shared between Snapchat and the publisher. Just as important, these ads tend to be favorable to millennials with 50% expressing the advertising level as “tolerable.”11
Have the ad blocking blues? Learn three ways publishers can overcome it.
Twitter
Unlike Snapchat, Twitter is an open platform that combines the tailored filtering of news millennials love through following, and the mass media publishing capabilities of traditional media through the Twitter feed.
Meaning, when a publisher shares an article on Twitter it instantly appears in the feed of those who follow the publisher. And it’s also in the overall public feed of the social platform. Accordingly, Twitter has a very significant reach – one that includes 32% of all persons aged 18-29 in the United States.12
Twitter is a constant stream regularly visited by millennials. 81% of millennials who use Twitter check their account at least once per day, and 15% say they do so more than 10 times per day.13 They enjoy the network for its ability to easily engage, with 49% regularly reading or watching news stories posted on Twitter and one-third regularly re-tweeting news stories posted by others.14
While the average user logs onto Facebook to obtain information that is relevant to their inner social circles, 43% (the largest cohort) of Twitter users go onto the social network to discover what is trending – news included.15
The winning formula for reaching and engaging the nation’s 75,400,000 U.S. based millennials? A solid social media strategy.
1. Associated Press-Norc Center For Public Affairs Research | American Press Institute. BREAKING DOWN THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION: A TYPOLOGY OF YOUNG NEWS CONSUMERS (n.d.): n. pag. Media Insight. American Press Institute, 2015. Web. 21 June 2016.
2. Pick, Tom. “Best Social Media Marketing Stats and Facts, 47 of Them.” Small Business Insights and Ideas. InfusionSoft, 21 Jan. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016.
3. “How Millennials Use and Control Social Media.” American Press Institute RSS. N.p., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 21 June 2016.
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7. “Snapchat Is Now the Third Most Popular Social Network Among Millennials | Martin-Wilbourn Partners.” MartinWilbourn Partners. N.p., 12 Aug. 2014. Web. 21 June 2016.
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10. Wallenstein, Andrew, and Susanne Ault. “Snapchat Content Survey: How Much Millennials Actually Use Live Stories, Discover and More.” Variety. N.p., 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016.
11. IBID
12. Duggan, Maeve. “The Demographics of Social Media Users.” Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. N.p., 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 21 June 2016.
13. Moy, Aaron. “Four Insights about Millennials on Twitter | Twitter Blogs.” Four Insights about Millennials on Twitter | Twitter Blogs. N.p., 9 July 2014. Web. 21 June 2016.
14. “How Millennials Use and Control Social Media.” American Press Institute RSS. N.p., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 21 June 2016.
15. IBID