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Teens are seeking greater expression and Social Media has created the right platform for teens and young adults to reach out and connect with friends, family as well as keep up with Global issues. It’s not surprising that Social Video and Instagram are the format and network of choice for the age group.
Brands that are seeking to create and foster Brand Connect with younger audiences are looking at messaging that is aspirational and inspires Teens and Young Adults to reach their goals.
As high as 79 % of consumers use Smartphones while shopping and 85 % use smartphones in-store for shopping and the phones are used prior to the store visit. 65% of the Shoppers prefer Mobile Sites to Apps for shopping.
Smartphones are used to make purchase decisions across categories, including Appliances, Electronics and Grocery.
Smartphones users tend to shop more, the frequency of Shopping using Smartphones is linked to the higher value purchases. The infographic based on Google Shopping insights gives the purchases for each category and usage of Smartphones while shopping.
Source: Visually
The popularity of Messaging Apps has created another opportunity for Brands to create campaigns that encourage audiences to interact with Brands using fun and entertaining features such as stickers.
Messaging Apps have monetized with different revenue models. According to The Street, “WeChat, Tango and Viber have 438 million active users, 70 million active users and 100 million active users, respectively. WeChat generates revenue for parent company Tencent by adding additional features to its service, such as stickers, games, and payments to generate revenue. Line, which recently filed to go public, also users stickers and games, as well as branded accounts sending out ads to users.” According to a report,” LINE is making roughly $18 million a quarter on sticker packs, and even more on in-game purchases.”
IPG lab has shared some of the successful campaigns for brands that have worked on Messaging Apps with the demographic. It is important to note that Messaging Apps work in a one-one scenario while social networks work in a one-to-many scenarios. Though it is not unusual for brands to promote the messaging app campaigns in Social Networks. Messaging apps campaigns may require Brands to think beyond posts and content that is entertaining and move to interactions and content that creates brand experiences that are fun and will engender collaborative behavior with the fans of the brand.
The nature of Messaging Apps is such that the Brands need to follow an Always-On strategy as the community of fans is ever-changing. This is a departure from Social Networks where the posts and content are present for fans to interact with for a longer period of time.
While choosing the messaging app for your Brand, the recommendation for an app should bear in mind is the Target Audience, Location and the desired action from the campaign:
• Audience: Understand your target audience and target campaigns based on user behavior. Some apps are suited for the younger audiences with exhibited behaviors of collaborative decision-making . For now Snapchat, Kik, and LINE are especially well suited for younger audiences, while Tango offers an older demographic.
• Location: While targeting a mass audience it may be important to go with the most popular app, however if you are looking at niche audience then the behavior may take precedence over the total audience size.
• Action: The desired action from consumers is important while deciding the app that you would like to use for your brand campaign. If you are looking at promoting a game it may be important for an app to allow for API integration to customize content. On the other hand if you are looking at simple sharing and simple downloads of content then it may be important to go with a certain app.
LINE’s stickers might be great for promoting celebrities and upcoming movies, but WeChat may be better to drive ecommerce, and Kik might be best if you have a great existing HTML5-based game in need of exposure.
Content Marketing for Millennials in Social Media requires newer tactics, with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube featuring in the Top Ten brands and as high as 59% of Millennials stating that they would like the branded content on Facebook and as high as 48 % of Millennials would shop online.
Millennials like Branded Content as it is a vortex of entertainment in addition to looking for financial means to support themselves and do not mind Native Ads in Video.
The US Millennials are at 79 Million (Source- Statista) contributing to 50 % of Grocery sales and consider brands to reflect their personality. Additionally, they rely on brands for creative content and relate to brands better that rely on them for content.
