2 Major Social Media Changes Rocking Digital Youth Marketing
In Trends
A tremendous 25% of global ad-spend is going towards Google and Facebook and this is all thanks to how accessible and affordable advertising has been made on these platforms. Now, major changes at Facebook and Instagram is about to flip the brand advertising world upside down. Less brand ads and more people-based content will be the order of the day, leaving brands working way harder and paying 40% more for adverts. Before scrambling for more ad spend to stay ahead, here’s what your brand needs to know, especially when marketing to young people.
- Know That It’s Not Personal
Facebook has seen a massive decline in user time spent on their platform, which they believe is due to brand clutter chasing people away. Students don’t want to see a long list of brand content on Facebook, they want to connect with their peers. This is what Facebook was like back when it started – organic content, chronologically flowing with everyone you follow appearing on your page.
Now brands can target users to the finest detail and this has made the whole experience feel a little impersonal. It can be ultra-creepy when it seems brands know you better than your friends.
What’s Coming: It’s inevitable that brand content will take a backseat to real people content. To beat this blow to your brand, you could just pay more to reach your desired audience. Or you could really make an effort to make your engagement, with those who follow your page, feel like a real peer interaction.
- Use Influential Voices
Facebook and Instagram have made light work for brands who’ve exchanged their traditional media advertising focus for a more consumer friendly content marketing strategy, taking their marketing spend so much further. Now brands with unpaid content will be dealt a hard knock on reach, as their information will automatically be slotted in according to algorithms, having very rare appearance.
This is where influencers are the hero of the day. Brands that have been making influencers part of their marketing mix as a peer-to-peer marketing tool, can continue to enjoy the effects of their organic engagement abilities and will be unaffected by the change in this respect, for now.
What’s Coming: While influencers are a great escape for brands who want to use real people engagement to connect with youth, it may only be a matter of time before Facebook has to regulate them as well to curb any sudden influx in brand activity.
- Don’t Panic
Facebook and Instagram have actually eliminated the clutter for your brand with this move. By getting rid of the annoying, inauthentic interactions that students desperately scroll away from and instead, bringing them more content from their friends and family, they’re more likely to engage and pay attention to their news feed. If you’re engaging with them through influencers and more conversational brand-to-consumer engagements, you’re likely to have a better impact.
What’s Coming: Real omni-channel marketing efforts. Avoid pushing too much brand content through influencers to make up for the gap in advertising. See how you can combine ad-spend and influencers to work in tandem for your brand alongside its other marketing channels.
- Decide Whether To Micro or Macro
It turns out that quantity will even out with quality on this one. Your brand can’t be in a million places at once unless you use your influencers wisely. Investing a large spend in one macro influencer (10,000 to 1-million followers) could be a great outreach to their million-strong audience, but measure this with the power of 10 micro influencers (up to 10,000 followers) at the same investment, you’re likely to benefit from the authenticity effect of having more people crediting your brand.
It’s a known fact that people buy from people, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Facebook and Instagram are using people to save their brand too.
What’s Coming: More people driven content, will mean more people driven to the platforms that influencers operate on and this could help micro influencers build their communities at a decent pace.
In the end your brand should be in a never-ending pursuit of finding more creative ways of marketing to students who are always one step ahead. Don’t let The Zuck decide your brand’s fate, get in touch with the youth marketing experts and we’ll keep your brand trending! Call or email .