How Is Gen Z Transforming Digital Marketing?

Gen Z is the next generation which digital marketers need to start homing in on. The only effective way to do this is by making effective use of social media. The era of the banner ad is quickly dying out, slowly but surely. It may have worked for older, less tech-savvy demographics, but it’s not going to be nearly as effective – as a digital marketing tool – in the future.

That’s not just hearsay, either. Banner ads were most effective the first day that one went online, and the popularity of them has been declining ever since. On average, 0.8% of people actually click on display ads. In addition, 50% of those clicks are accidental.

Generation Z is taking over. In fact, it was predicted that by 2020 they would make up 40% of all customers. As digital natives, Gen Z are distinctive in that they have never known what life was like without digital technologies such as smartphones and social media. This shift has transformed the way we communicate, connect and market with one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in the world.

How Old Is Generation Z?

Those classified in the generation Z demographic are typically between 16 and 18 years of age. Owing to the apparently endless range of options which are available to these youngsters in the digital world, the only limit is time. This means that consumption behaviours amongst young people have evolved.

An often-thrown-around fact for millennials – and indeed Generation Z – is that they suffer from short attention spans because of digital. Other people debate that this isn’t the case. Rather than an eight-second attention span (fascinatingly enough less than the described span of a goldfish) being an issue, they in fact possess an eight-second filter that is very adept at casting aside immaterial information.

What Is Gen Z’s Primary Goal?

Gen Z’s main goal is to get to content quicker. For this generation, speed is attained by the usage of trending pages within apps which collect the most popular recent content. Functionality such as:

• Moments for Twitter gives users the opportunity to enjoy the latest news from around the world, curated in accordance with their specific areas of interest.
• In addition, the Pulse app for LinkedIn gives a quick and easy solution for finding pertinent news as well as information based on a user’s area of expertise and business connections, and it’s these developments, amongst others, that are proving to be very popular among members of this new generation.

Optimise Your Digital Marketing

Gen Z is known for being empowered as well as active social media users. The generation easily communicates, networks, reviews and connects brands online. A total of 53% are influenced by comments made on social media.

Given their activity as well as reach in the social space, Gen Z has become an influential as well as important customer cohort for brands. This pushes digital marketers to shift content creation to cater to a more interactive demographic. While they still interact with content that millennials like — e.g. articles and videos — Gen Z wants more from brands, specifically on social media.

Changes in interaction may mean relying more heavily on polls, and quizzes or responding with customisation to comments as well as chats. Additionally, Gen Z likes user-generated content due to growing up in the Yelp and Amazon era. This means the demographic wouldn’t think of purchasing anything without conversation points and reviews guiding their decision.

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