How to talk to millennials online

August 12, 2018 / Communicating across generations

Different words and ways of speaking will resonate with different target audiences.

If you’re trying to speak to a seasoned CEO, emojis and abbreviations won’t work!

But if you’re trying to reach a millennial, you need to speak in their language… and emojis might be required. ✌😎

Now, some people worry about alienating other people in their audience by focusing on just one audience. But when you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no one.

So the first place to start is getting to be specific about who you are trying to reach — and getting to know your audience in detail.

Often it can be difficult to understand our target market if they are in a different generation than us. With millennials, you could bring in a college intern, and ask them some interview questions.

  • Are they male or female?
  • What is your occupation?
  • Income?
  • Age?
  • Are you on social media? Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook?
  • Which do you spend the most time on (personal / work)?
  • What do you most enjoy seeing, reading, watching, or listening to on social media or other networks (like youtube, online blogs, podcasts)?
  • What are your current challenges (related to our product/service)?
  • What are your goals and desires (related to our product/service)?
  • How could we get your attention with our product? What is it about our product that could help you reach your goals/desires or solve your problems?

You can record your interview with them and use the exact same language in your marketing.

And then, your campaign should be targeting that audience on the platform where they spend their time… and this might be different from where you spend your time!

Millennials won’t just magically end up on your website or in your email database. So instead, go to where they are.

For them, you could create a social media campaign on Snapchat or Instagram.

The more you can speak the language of the people you want to reach on the platforms they want to be on… the better your organization can be seen and heard!

 

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