How to Profit by Selling to a Gen Z Audience

With all the focus on the millennial generation, it's easy to ignore the vast potential of another up-and-coming group of consumers.

In fact, the generation referred to as “millennials” consists of people born between the late 1970s and the early 2000s, give or take a few years. That means they are not really particularly young anymore.

Someone who was born in 1986 is over 30 by now.

This much-discussed generation of people have moved on from being young, rebellious teens and college students, to being 20- and 30-somethings out there in the working world.

Today, a new generation is coming of age: “Generation Z.”

And they're not identical with their millennial predecessors.

They're coming of age in a very different time than today's 30-somethings did. They have different ideas, values, and attitudes.

They also don't use the same social media as other generations.

For marketers, Facebook Ads have long been a linchpin of digital marketing strategy.

They're super effective, incredibly reliable, and laser targeted to exactly the right group of people.

But here's the thing about Gen Z: they're not really into Facebook.

Think about it: these young adults' parents and grandparents use Facebook.

When you were a teenager, would you have wanted your mom following you on social media?

Heck no!

Here's where you can reach this burgeoning generation of young adults online.

Gen Z prefers social networks like Snapchat and Whisper over Facebook

Marketers are used to targeting Millennials on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

It turns out their successors gravitate towards disappearing content platforms like Snapchat, and anonymous messaging networks like Whisper.

According to the 2014 Facebook Demographic Report, 25 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds left Facebook in 2014.

This means that marketers who want to reach a younger audience will have to adapt their social strategy to include new networks.

Companies like Dove are already targeting Generation Z with ad campaigns on Whisper.

Unlike a promoted ad or sponsored post, Whisper gives brands ownership of keywords—these are called ”brandwords.”

Every time a user punches in words like “hair” and “hairstyle,” they are served Dove-branded backgrounds to use for their Whisper post.

YouTube is the most-used social media platform by 84% of Gen Zers

New research from strategy consulting firm Accenture points out that the next generation is watching a ton of video.

And according to a report from Cisco, video will account for 80 percent of all internet traffic by 2019.

Obviously there’s huge potential for brands who have a social video strategy.

The good news is that even if you’re a small business owner with an iPhone, there’s a way to make video work for you.

Nearly all major networks have adapted to providing video, live video, and looping video somehow—jumping on the social video train doesn’t have to be a high-production undertaking.

So if you're targeting Gen Z, you might want to go easy on Facebook ads, and focus on advertising via Instagram and Snapchat instead.