divided youth?
DESCRIPTION
Our presentation at Haymarket's Youth Marketing Conference focused on the difference in social media behaviours between teens and mid-twenties. By exploring 3 key issues - posting/accelerated nostalgia and tuition fee's we explore if social media is causing new divisions or just providing more readily accessible evidence of those which have always existed.TRANSCRIPT
Divided youth?
Social insights into 16-24 year olds
Contact:Dan MilesNew Business [email protected]. +44 (0)20 7264 4767www.precise.co.uk
Contents
From social data to social insight
Divided youth? Accessible evidence Accelerated nostalgia Accentuating the divisions Focus on tuition fees
Implications for marketers
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From social data to social insight
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There is an unfathomably huge volume of content being created and shared across the social web.
Image courtesy of Roberto Verso on Flickr
What happens in 60 seconds on the social web?
695,000 Facebook status updates
20,000 new posts on Tumblr
98,000 Tweets
72 hours of new video on Youtube
1,500 new blog entries
6,600 new pictures on Flickr
Image courtesy of Sean MacEntee from Flickr
Monitoring tools provide the means to navigate such great swathes of data…but outputs are just more data. Not insight.
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within all this data lies opinions, perceptions, needs and attitudes, expressed by young people spontaneously, in real time, and on the record.
… and by using a unique methodology that blends data analytics with traditional research and insight techniques, we can draw meaningful insight from it.
Divided youth
How can we use social insight to better understand the differences between teens and 20somethings?
Image courtesy of Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints from Flickr Image courtesy of Andinarvaez from Flickr
Total tweets more important than number of followers.
Number of followers more
important than total tweets. Content filtered by careful
curation of a considered image.
Unrestrained reporting of everyday experiences.
A place for private conversations.
A platform for broadcast.
there are three broad, general differences in the social content produced by teens and 20somethings that we would call out
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For teens… Total tweets more
important than number of followers. “4000 tweets is a big
accomplishment for me”
Image courtesy of Andinarvaez from Flickr
For teens… Unrestrained reporting of
everyday experiences.
“I just had a bowl of coco pops watching #madeinchelsea too!!!! Xxx”
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For teens... Twitter is also a place for
(often private) conversations.
Image courtesy of Jenny818 from Flickr
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By mid 20’s… Number of followers more
important than total tweets.
“100 followers. Woop Woop! Heres to the next 100!”
Image courtesy of Striatic from Flickr
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By mid 20’s... Content filtered by careful
curation of a considered image.
Image courtesy of shannonkringen from Flickr
“Sunday night after the football I'm cooking my family a three course meal. All from scratch. #causeiwanna”
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By mid 20’s… Twitter is a platform for
broadcast.
Image courtesy of Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints from Flickr
But while there are distinct behaviours and motivations, is the greater discretion exercised by “older youth” so new or surprising?
We would suggest that that social media
provides more accessible evidence of the
differences that have always existed. And
therein lies the opportunity...
Image courtesy of Erokism from Flickr
...though there is one mindset difference we are seeing that might be directly attributable to “younger youth” growing up in a social world in a way that “older youth” have not...
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Accelerated nostalgia.
Image courtesy of Eyesplah from Flickr
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With lives documented and timelined as never before we’re seeing teens expressing a nostalgia for the recent past – for relationships, events, experiences, brands and technologies.
Image courtesy of flattop341 from Flickr
“I remember when I used to think j2o was beer and pretend I was drunk year 7 times was so kwl ”.
Accelerated nostalgia.
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Image courtesy of Magnus D from Flickr
Another key issue affecting this group is tuition fees. We wanted to see if this issue was also accentuating any differences….
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Source: All English language conversations mentioning “tuition fees” 15 April to 15 July 2012
Other discussions
Contributing to debt
Value for money
General negativity
Affecting decisions
General discussions
Sharing news
Scholarships and funding
Politics
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Share of topics of conversation surrounding tuition fees
Broadly Positive Broadly Negative
We have seen that teenagers don’t really engage with the more emotive and political aspects of the debate in the same as the mid 20’s.
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Image courtesy of vincentdesjardins from Flickr
Instead, the increase in tuition fees seems to be encouraging a more pragmatic, outcomes- focused “young youth”.
“Would you say the education and opportunities
available at Cambridge are worth the tuition fees
rather than attending a Scottish university for
free?”
After nearly a whole (academic) year at uni, I really don't think it's worth the amount in tuition fees. ”
I have offers from Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Warwick, Nottingham, Lancaster, Sheffield, Leeds, Essex. However I am
considering accepting the Warwick offer because their scholarship covers tuition fees and additional living costs...
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Some implications for marketers
Image courtesy of Shahed Salehian from Flickr
This is not a sharply divided youth, but an awareness of the differences and surprising similarities can create opportunities.
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Image courtesy of Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints from Flickr Image courtesy of Andinarvaez from Flickr
Social media motivations vary across the youth age spectrum. Feed “older youth” with content that complements their desired image. Give “young youth” more “tweet fuel”.
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Teens can be nostalgic too. Tap into this nostalgia for recent technologies and experiences. Feed the desire to document.
Image courtesy of DaveBleasdale from Flickr
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Image courtesy of vincentdesjardins from Flickr
For a potentially more outcomes-driven youth, demonstrate the benefits your brand brings like never before.
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Thank you.