Where To Engage With A Younger Tech-Savvy Audience

When you’ve been around the block a few times we tend to forget there’s a whole new generation coming through with new ideas and new ways of doing stuff.

What’s arguably already the biggest industry in the world is on the point of exponential expansion – but most businesses are still not ‘getting’ it at all.

So what’s all this got to do with marketing to a young tech-savvy audience? Bear with me, I will explain in a minute.

Global Expansion On An Unprecedented Scale?

We currently have 7 billion people in the world. By 2100 it will be 11 billion (due to an aging population rather than increasing birth rates).

BTW, these stats come from the Swedish statistician Hans Rosling, who in case you didn’t know it, is in Time Magazine’s list of most influential people (so it must be true, ha!).

The United Nations estimates the global population is increasing by 74 million a year. That’s 74,000,000 new people who have never heard of you or your business – every year.

And they will ALL be tech-savvy (in that they won’t have known a world without tech).

Our current crop of 18 year-old’s have witnessed the launch of Facebook and Twitter (and of course a whole bunch of other mostly forgotten startups).

And Greater Wealth…

Add to all of this, the fact that the world as a whole is increasing in terms of wealth (yes, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, but the poor are getting richer too – ask Hans Rosling and the UN).

Change is happening faster than at any time in history. And where there is change there is opportunity.

But you need to understand this if you want to take advantage of it. Looking at the youth of today and how they do tech is one way.

Here’s some stats from Business Insider:

• 87% of graduates use Facebook (despite the rumours of Facebookitis)
• 66% use Instagram
• 55% use Twitter

And of the super trendy apps such as YikYak and Whisper, 95%+ don’t use them at all.

Best Platform Daily Use

But it’s the Daily Use stats that show the real numbers. These are the platforms you will find your young audience on every day:

1. Facebook 61% (70% engagement)
2. YouTube 55% (57% engagement)
3. Instagram 51% (77% engagement)
4. Snapchat 46% (71% engagement)
5. Pandora 37% (48% engagement)
6. Twitter 35% (64% engagement)
7. iTunes 32% (45% engagement)
8. Netflix 29% (41% engagement)
9. Google+ 23% (44% engagement)
10. Pinterest 16% (36% engagement)
11. Vine 16% (37% engagement)
12. Tumblr 15% (44% engagement)
13. Spotify14% (45% engagement)
14. Skype 8% (15% engagement)
15. Apple Facetime 8% (17% engagement)
16. Beats 8% (47% engagement)
17. Buzzfeed 6% (22% engagement)
18. LinkedIn 4% (36% engagement)
19. Hulu 4% (14% engagement)

Daily use is important if you want to see where your audience is hanging out, but it’s not the only figure you need to take into account.

Top Engagement Platforms

The engagement figure tells a different story. The more engaged a user is, the more open they are.

And the more open they are, the easier it is to convert them into customers (‘closed’ people become the best ambassadors once you win them over BTW).

Target those platforms with the right messaging and you have a chance of a better response.

The Ultimate Platforms

So the revised list of platforms rearranged by audience engagement looks like this:

1. Instagram
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. Pandora
6. Beats
7. iTunes
8. Spotify
9. Google+
10. Tumblr
11. Vine
12. Pinterest
13. LinkedIn

So there you have it. All you need do now is figure out what to say. And that, of course, is the holy grail of marketing.

On that note, one tactic that’s getting increased engagement is podcasting – and for that, the best platform hands down is iTunes.

Join me at Advanced Business School if you want to find out more about how to find audiences, target your market and make a ton of sales.