Content Marketing :
Creating content for Gen Z
By: Emily Steitzer
In the past, advertising served as the primary method of influencing a targeted audience’s thoughts about a brand. However, the integration of the Internet and mobile devices with our daily lives has caused society to adapt to processing information in much larger quantities and at higher speeds.
For targeting B2C markets with younger demographics, specifically Generation Z, knowing how to use content marketing on digital channels can help a brand stand out among the competition as an industry leader. Generation Z can be a tricky demographic to create content for, because this audience has grown up during this technological revolution which wired their minds to efficiently process a rapid stream of content and filter out anything their minds deems irrelevant or repetitive.
Determining which platforms on which to distribute your content is a necessary step in your marketing plan, because if your target audience cannot find your content easily, it is unlikely they will engage with your brand. Generation Z is heavily involved in social media and if your brand cannot deliver genuine, useful content on a regular basis, it is hard to maintain a strong following that will interact with and share your content on these platforms.
The social media platforms Generation Z favors are highly visual and vary in length of content. These platforms include Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. Instagram is currently one of the largest social media platforms and allows users to share photos and videos, which makes it a great platform for engaging new consumers in the target audience. YouTube is a video-sharing site with a long-standing reputation as a convenient source of knowledge and teaching tools, in addition to being a popular platform for consumers to voice their opinions on brands and products or provide helpful reviews and tutorials to educate others in the purchase journey. Snapchat is a newer platform primarily used by the younger generations due to the fast-paced nature of the content, and should have quick, easy-to-digest content pieces.
While a marketing plan should not solely rely on these three platforms, it is necessary to consider that the newest generations of consumers shows a strong preference to the highly visual, perpetual streams of content on Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.
When designing your content for Generation Z, your creative team must keep in mind the other content that will be published alongside your brand. A drawback to social media’s accessibility is the fact that anyone can post content, anytime. This makes it harder for your brand to be the center of attention on social media. Using strong visual design helps your brand stand out from the masses and avoid being quickly lost in the stream of content. Creating strong visuals without appearing tacky or off-putting can be difficult to master, but there are a few points to keep in mind.
Aesthetically, Generation Z shows a preference for nontraditional and innovative design: bold colors and shapes can help your brand’s content appeal to this target audience. Your brand’s creative team should know color theory and study trending styles in order to keep up with the rapid evolution of relevant visual content on social media.
Another important aspect to keep in mind when planning your content designs is a theme. Staying within a specific theme will establish your brand’s niche. Primarily, your brand’s content should be eye-catching in order to break through the constant stream of other content, without relying on “clickbait” tactics.
The content should be unique, strange, funny, or beautiful; but should not use shock-factors or deception to trick the audience into viewing the content, because that can discourage users to come back to your brand’s social media for more. For the most effective content marketing strategy, test out various types of content and posting schedules and see which combinations work best for your Generation Z audience.
One of the most difficult obstacles of content marketing to a younger audience that marketers face is finding a tone that both works for the brand’s professional image while resonating with the Generation Z audience. A lot of content published by businesses is dismissed by Generation Z audiences due to the advertisement-like tones. Content marketing uses pull marketing tactics, while advertising relies on push marketing tactics. Advertising has become an oversaturated industry, and more businesses are realizing that content marketing holds value in our current society, especially among Generation Z audiences who have learned to filter out push-marketing in favor of tactics that put themselves in charge of the decision-making process.
It is also important to conscious of phrasing and language choice. Too many marketing campaigns focus on using trendy “slang” terms and phrases that are popular among their Generation Z audiences. However, by the time these campaigns are published and shared, the slang has become outdated and irrelevant. Slang has a short lifespan and basing an entire campaign around a passing trend can cause your brand to be perceived as dated and inauthentic.
The most crucial part of content marketing to Generation Z, or any demographic for that matter, is to keep your tone professional, yet approachable. Your brand should strive to be seen as the authority on your industry and its related topics, without being inaccessible for curious consumers to ask questions and voice their concerns.
The best way to check if your brand is perceived as an expert in its industry is by tracking consumer comments. Are consumers asking questions and wanting to learn more from your brand, or are they relatively silent? Maintaining the balance between teacher and colleague can be precarious for businesses, but the payoff of strong content marketing and responsive action to consumer engagement can lead to achieving greater brand loyalty and advocacy.
Overall, when targeting Generation Z in your content marketing strategy, it is important to keep in mind the environmental and societal factors that affected the development of the audience. Technology such as computers and cell phones have been around for decades, and Generation Z has only seen these devices grow more advanced and accessible to the general public. The influence this newest generation of consumers has on commerce in general shows that the future of marketing will need to drastically change to keep up with buying trends.
Having a vast encyclopedia of product and brand information available at their fingertips, Generation Z is one of the most educated, inquisitive, and powerful consumer demographics today. In order to stay relevant and profitable, businesses will need to learn how to efficiently target this audience, and based on what B2C marketing tactics are most effective today it seems that content marketing is the most viable option.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emily is a student at Bellevue College studying digital marketing. She is expected to graduate with a Bachelor's degree by 2020.
