Millennials have become a trend on their own (and that isn’t just coming from someone in the generation). We have our own color (millennial pink), our own twitter trends (#thingsmillennialshavekilled) and even our own target market. If you aren’t taking advantage of the millennial age bracket in your social media strategy you are missing out on an entire generation that lives, breathes, and knows social media like the back of their hands. Marketers are struggling with how to reach the tech hungry generation. Between different platforms and so many brands that are vying for their attention it can be hard to break through all the noise.

Here are some simple steps to take to reach millennials and actually engage them.

Not just consumers

With as much as millennials use social media you can’t just “keep up” with how much they look at platform. You need to stand out and involve them in some way. Millennials don’t want to be passive and just look at ads online, they want to tell you their preferences and share content that they have created. That is why influencers have taken off so much. Millennials don’t put as much value into brands telling them how great their products are … they want to see for themselves or hear it from a trusted resource.

I know that influcer marketing and co-creators can be hard to convince upper level management to get on board with, but start small with a challenge for a free product and have your winner promote for your brand. See the results and use that as your jumping off point.

Exciting and unique content

Millennials are all about design. Something exciting, digital and cool on our feeds will catch a lot of attention.

Of course, the brand image in important but it is less of a focus when sharing content across social channels. Since platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other are very image focused that is what they are looking for! So create content that is visually appealing and stands out among the thousands of photos that they see everyday.

A great way to catch attention is to include video in your social media strategy. We have put together a list of 10 tricks that you can use to create viral videos. Ya you read that right… viral – every marketers goal.

Be Authentic

Social Media is the place that millennials “hang out”. Think back to where you hung out as a young person when there was an loud car salesperson coming over the radio and talking about about how great they were didn’t it just make you tune out?

That is the same idea with social media and millennials. It is where they hear about new products and new brands but in an authentic way.

Think of millennials as sharks… they can smell inauthentic marketing from a mile away. 

Focus on why the brand is so great! If you use the brand yourself build on that or take from customer testimonials. Millennials want to hear from customers and real people.

We love REI‘s messaging with their Black Friday campaigns. The hashtag #OptOutside and the idea of being closed on Black Friday reaches millennials that care about the enviornment. It shows an authentic message that REI not only wants to campaign for more people to be outdoors but that they are more interested in reaching the audience that care about being outdoor than the people that are just looking for deals.

REI #OptOutside Campaign

Timing

With so much content on social media today millennials can get distracted easily. Make sure that you are posting at the right time on the right platform.

You want content that is relevant and timely. Don’t mention a event that happened 3 days ago… they have already moved on.

Convenience and an easy user face is key to grabbing a millennials business. Why do you think amazon has been so successful? Besides the fact that Amazon rocks and has everything – it offers Amazon prime and free 2 shipping with returns. This is a millennials dream.

Amazon combines shopping online and through social media and the convince factor that so many millennials crave. 

Of course, this may be different for each brand and industry, but as a general rule, Millennials are on their phones, laptops and tablets browsing shopping options and prefer to shop online.

If Millennials are a part of your core target market, use these strategies to reach and engage this crucial generation of shoppers. If you have any strategies that you used and were succeful with when reaching out to millennials please share with us below. We would love to hear about it!