Appealing to Cross Sexes & Generations Online

Businesses, associations, non-profits; actually, ALL professionals, struggle with how to effectively communicate with their different target markets online.  One message and the medium does NOT appeal to everyone. I'd like to help you understand, how to take ONE message and repurprose it for various target markets.

I've been asked to speak on this specific topic recently, to prepare I pulled together mountains of statistic about WHERE various ages are online, WHAT they are doing online, WHEN they are online and WHICH mediums they use to access it.

I've become so excited about it this topic that I've decided to write a book on it.  I'll be looking at 1,000s of various behaviors through real businesses' online social media platforms and pinpointing which activities cause specific types of engagement from specific demographics.  On a side note, if your organization happens to have over 1,000 followers or fans, and you'd like me to analyze your platforms, please let me know, I'd love to include you in my book! 

To start, I have included these two charts which show what 75,000 people of different sexes and ages are talking about on Facebook. What they're talking about reflects what they're interested in, listening for and engaging with online. Use these word maps to mold your Posts or Tweets for that target audience.  Take one message and present it in a manner that's most appealing to each of your target markets.  

What are different SEXs talking about?

University of Pennsylvania researchers analyzed the Facebook status updates of 75,000, found the sexes have a very different vocabulary online.  

A wise communicator adjusts their message's language based on way their target audience is interested in or talking about. I suggest you take your  primary message, dice it up, then target it. One simple way to target is to boost a Post on Facebook to ONLY females when using language females relate to, and boost a very different Post aimed at males.

For all the details on this chart, you can go to the article itself, Oct 2013, by Business Insider,

Scientists Used Facebook For the Largest Ever Study of Language and Personalit. 

What are different age groups talking about on Facebook?

Conversations certainly  "evolve" as we age.  

Continuing the above approach, adjust your message to embrace what your target audience is speaking of.  Learn from these word clouds to modify your message based on age.   

For example, if you are targeting age groups between 23 to 29, you are not going to catch their attention with posts about school, homework or family; but, more likely with something to do careers, money & beer!

Allocation of Online Time by Age

To add to the mix, look at WHAT different age groups are doing online? 

Well, it's certainly NOT email for the under 24 years old!   

Also, notice how long each spends online daily. The under 24 age group is online 3.5 times longer than the over 55 age group. PLUS, the under 24 group is online MUCH later in the evening than the rest of the population (different set of statistics and my own personal experience).  So, target your platforms and timing.

On a final note, think about mobility, over 50% of teens,  both sexes, use their cell phones as their PRIMARY method to surf the net. So, if your Posts are aimed at youth, the links, videos or photos attached to your Posts must be smart phone friendly.  

There's SO much more to cover! Like, the effective use of email, which exact platform, video and texting.. Next time!

Sources: 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/10/02/study_most_popular_facebook_keywords_by_age_gender_and_personality.html

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/7704/age-not-gender-drives-most-social-media-use#ixzz2iZhuY6hw

http://readwrite.com/2013/04/08/teenagers-smartphones-how-theyre-changing-the-world#awesm=~oljjTbhZ4Dx4RO

10 Effective Postng Tips

What do you even post about? One unique idea I always suggest, (hold on to your seats), is to ask your clients.  

Firstly, what do your clients see you as an expert in, and why would they want your Posts and Tweets to follow them around?  Next, figure out what it is that your clients see you as the thought leader of.  Explore what you or your staff research, or create in your current business process; from this, what can be shared or distributed through Social Media.  This can be in the form of text, video, audio, events, contents, announcements, news, results, contests, or articles.  Figure out how often you have the ability to collect and share, and keep to that schedule.  Have your Social Media schedule be an extension of your Marketing efforts, helping you support your business efforts.       If you can indeed create your own original material, better yet.  If however, you cannot, it is still effective to be positioned as the gate keeper or the expert in whatever you are the thought leader of, and Post or Retweet others relevant articles.  Creating your own content is king in the digital world, as it helps with your search engine ranking.  Again, the Digital Tipping Point enables the Small Business Owner to utilize tools we could not afford before; whether you are using the written word  via a blog, or a video via YouTube, or audio via a Podcast, or Photos via Flickr, or a productline via Pinterest, or one of many others.  Creating your own material and then distributing them through either Facebook or Twitter, ie through Social Media tools, simply increases your importance on search engine tools, which in turn brings your website or blog higher in search results.

How do you Post? Remember that you should Post 5 educational Posts to 1 self-promoting Post.  Also, remember to not over or under whelm your followers with Posts.  The top reasons people stop following you are because your posts are full of marketing material only, you post too often, or your posts are boring, repetitive or too long.   

On Facebook, people in the US have 160 friends on average, and in Canada it's 260 friends. People log into Facebook every other day, so, when they log in, they see the most recent posts.  If you aren't posting often enough, they’ll never see your posts as your Posts will be buried under more recent posts.  If you Post all of your Posts at one time, and your follower happened to log on at that time, you’ll likely annoy them and they’ll stop following you.  So, you need to spread out your Posts.  Find out when your target market is online, and scatter your posts throughout a week at those times.  In general, Facebook has shared that the highest volume of viewers is from 10am to 4pm and then again at 8pm.  Ie if your target market is NOT online at 3am, do NOT post then!  They also say that people share and like Posts the MOST on Fridays more often then not!

The following elements get Shared, LIKEd or RETWEETED more than not:

• Be positive.  (People stop following negative rants!)
• Include a link to more information.   (You should fire staff who Post without a link!)
• Shorter than 80 characters in length. (Keep it short and sweet!)
• Simple language. 
• Include an ACTION.  (Please Share, Like or Retweet. Actually, saying "Please Retweet" gets more retweets than not saying it.  People often think "RT" alone means it's already been Reweeted.
• Include a NUMBER. (Ie "30 Solid 2012 Social Media Predictions"..)
• Avoid BUZZ words (ie "SEO Optimization...")
• Post when your clients are likely to be online.
• Friday Post get more LIKEs then any other day of the week.
• Edutainment (Be educational and entertaining), if you are funny, do let your humor out now!

These 10 tips will help you increase your online efforts' effectiveness! HAVE FUN!

Seven Posting Tips!

These are 7 posting tips we're seeing as Best Practices:

1) Shorter Posts gets shared and commented on at a higher rate then longer posts (ie 80ish characters is a short post size.)


2) Posts including links, videos and photos get shared & commented on more then those without links. 

3) Posts announcing something about your company, without a link back to your website or an action to convert your FANs to clients, is a waste of a Post!  Your intent is to first gain your FANs respect & trust, and then to make it easy for them to do business with you.

4) The rule of thumb for a brand or service organizations, is to have a ratio of 5 knowledge posts to 1 self-promoting. 

5) The top two reasons people/FANs stop following you are (i) you post too often, & (ii) your posts are too self-promoting.

6) A brand or service should Post once to twice a day, where as a media organization or events organization can post up to 10 times a day.

7) Educate & Entertain.. if you are funny to begin with, let your humor come across on your Posts.  The term that's coming out these days is Edutainment.  Good Posts are Educational while they are Entertaining.