As an only child, I spent a considerable amount of my adolescence alone in my bedroom of our family’s home snacking in front of a television. Without question, of all of the television shows that I enjoyed watching growing up, one of my absolute favorite pastimes back then, consisted of eating PB & J sandwiches while watching syndicated reruns of one of the greatest television shows of the ‘90s—Saved by the Bell.
If you’ve never seen an episode of the series, Saved by the Bell was a coming of age sitcom that followed the lives of irreverent high schooler Zach Morris (the show’s main character) and five of his classmate friends at their fictional Bayside High School.
Although the show had already come to an end quite some time before I became a high school student myself, besides dreaming of attending Bayside High, another aspect of the show that I, along with millions of other adolescent viewers, really enjoyed and would had loved to experience—was some of the shenanigans that took place whenever the friends got together at their after school hangout—a local diner called The Max.
Back in the 1990s, if a company wanted to target Millenials, posting a billboard adjacent to a place like The Max would be a sagacious marketing tactic. However, if marketing towards Gen Zers is a priority for your company, social media is the place you’d certainly want to start. And according to a recent Gen Z study by Sprout Social, over 80% of the demographic’s social media users have a profile on these three platforms.
1. Instagram
It's not the mall. It isn’t the local skating rink. And it’s surely not the movie theater. If a company wanted to know the place Gen Zers frequent the most in their free time in hopes of marketing towards them—that place would be Instagram.
With a whopping 91% of all Gen Z social media users having a profile on IG, to say that the social network is the most popular platform amongst the demographic would be an understatement.
What makes ‘The Gram’ so appealing to Gen Z is that the platform contains the best of all worlds. Whether you’re into posting or viewing images, short-form videos, or live streaming—IG has it all. The Sprout Social study also discovered that Instagram is Gen Z’s top social media channel for product discovery.
2. TikTok
TikTok recently came under fire for something that is probably of no surprise to those who frequent the social media platform on a daily basis—being too addictive. Specifically as it pertains to younger users.
As with most social media platforms, TikTok’s algorithm consists of a proprietary formula which determines the types of videos to recommend to each user based on videos they search for, like, and spend the most amount of time viewing.
Aside from being extremely addictive, another reason why some 86% of Gen Zers on social media have a profile on the short-form video platform is because it also serves as a search engine. In fact, studies show that nearly half of the demographic prefers using TikTok and Instagram's search engine over Google.
3. YouTube
Although the brand comes in at third on this list, with over 122 million people who visit their platform each day, overall, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world (with Google still reigning at No. 1).
With many marketing experts believing that soon, YouTube will become the most popular social media platform amongst Gen Zers.
The video sharing service has been able to entice 83% of Gen Z social media users to create a profile on their platform by constantly adding features to it that younger audiences tend to gravitate towards most. Particularly their YouTube Shorts section. Which has been an absolute game-changer for the video sharing service.
Final thoughts
In her book, InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z, author and market researcher Sarah Weise writes, “Companies who don’t bother to understand how future customers think, find information, transact, and communicate (or, worse yet, those who believe it does not apply to them) wind up as relics, as stories we tell in pithy marketing books and in keynote speeches at business conferences.”
To ensure that your company avoids becoming one of those relics that others tell stories about—always seek ways to understand your audience better. Especially if that audience consists primarily of Gen Zers.
If you'd like help with increasing your brand's awareness amongst Gen Z consumers on social media, we’d love to help you with that. Email us today to schedule a complimentary client call so that your company could become the next Decryption client to connect with consumers via contemporary culture.
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