Trying to engage millennials on social media? There are a few things you need to know. 

Millennials were the first adopters of social media and are still actively using it. In fact, 50% of millennials use social to research products and brands to help inform their buying decisions. Another 30% of millennials are engaging with brands at least once a month on social media. 

So, we know millennials are on these social platforms and they’re utilizing them in their everyday lives. The problem many brands are facing is how to cut through the noise and create a content strategy to engage them on social media. 

We’ll show you three proven ways you can engage millennials on social and provide helpful tips and tricks along the way.

Interested in learning even more about how to market to millennials on social? Download our 2022 Generational Marketing Playbook.

Who Are Millennials? What Motivates Them?

• As of 2020, there are 72M millennials in the U.S.
• They were born between 1981 and 1996 and range from 21 to 46 years old
• 72% of millennials say social media is an essential part of their lives
• 47% use social media to learn about new trends
• 77% say a healthy lifestyle is “very” or “extremely important”
• 30% have unfollowed a brand on social media because their content was inauthentic
• Millennials believe UGC is 35% more memorable than other media

Three Ways to Engage Millennials on Social Media

1. Incorporate UGC into your social strategy 
2. Prioritize authenticity
3. Show the experience and value you’re providing to customers 

Use UGC to Engage Millennials on Social Media 

So, you’re looking to engage millennials on social media? The key to any successful strategy is to incorporate UGC.  It’s one of the best, and most underutilized tools, available to social media marketers.

What was once an immersive way for people to share their favorite brands on social has gained momentum as a major marketing strategy and is the modern-day word of mouth. Millennials utilize UGC as a powerful tool to tap into human connection in the same way they’d ask their friends or family to share recommendations.

UGC is any type of content (text, vidoes, images, reviews, etc.) that’s created by real people rather than by brands. It functions as modern-day word of mouth. Millennials utilize UGC in the same way they’d ask their friends or family to share recommendations.  

In order to engage millennials on social media through UGC, you can start by resharing Instagram Stories when users tag your brand. You can also create a UGC campaign where you ask your community to share photos wearing/ watching/ using your brand with a specific hashtag. 

Here are a few examples:

Clothing brand Everlane utilizes UCG by encouraging users to share photos of themselves wearing their Everlane pieces by using the #everlaneonyou hashtag. This creates a trove of authentic content for the brand to share on their social channels. As we’ll learn in our next section, millennials value and expect authenticity from the brands they follow and support. 

UGC is the perfect way to showcase real people in your brand messaging and engage millennials on social media. They’ll be more likely to become brand loyalists and advocates when they see brands engaging directly with them by resharing their content.

Another way to engage millennials on social media with UGC is to reshare content that’s relevant to your brand pillars.

We worked with our partners at NFL on Prime to weave UGC into their social strategy and engage millennial audiences. Posts like the one below received more engagements than the average post by 2.38x on Twitter and 1.43x on Instagram.

Interested in learning more about the power of UGC? Check out our blog 4 Ways to Create an Engaged Community on Social. 

Prioritize Authenticity to Engage Millennials on Social Media 

If there’s one thing you can do to engage millennials on social media it’s to prioritize authenticity in everything you do. Why? 

A whopping 90% of millennials say authenticity is an important factor in determining which brands they like and support. Another 30% of millennials say they’ve unfollowed a brand on social media because they felt their content was inauthentic.

You won’t be able to engage millennials on social media if they perceive your brand to be inauthentic. That means highlighting real people; your customers and those who are affiliated with your brand. The easiest way to do that? UGC and influencer partnerships. 

Millennials are already familiar and have established relationships with the influencers they follow. So, when a brand partners with an influencer to promote a new product, millennials will find the content more authentic and relatable. 

Here’s an example:

Millennial fan-favorite eyewear brand Warby Parker partnered with NYC-based creator Gabby Whiten to share their new Everywhere Series sunglasses. 

The post shows her wearing them around the city in her everyday life. This will engage their millennial audience as it feels relatable and authentic to how they’d be wearing the sunglasses themselves.

Read: The Age of Authenticity: How Brands Can Win Back Gen Z and Millennial Consumers

Highlight the Experience Your Brand Provides

Millennials are all about experiences. So much so that 72% of them prefer to spend money on experiences instead of on material objects. 

For over 70% of millennials, social media is an essential part of their lives. They love sharing their experiences with their followers. Which is why, if your brand wants to engage millennials on social media, you need to focus on showcasing the experience your brand provides. 

Here’s an example:

Take a look at Starbucks. Listed as one of the demographic’s favorite brands, they make an effort to show the experience of getting a seasonal drink and visiting one of their stores. 

To engage millennials on social media, Starbucks reveals how their drinks play into the changing seasons. They show that it’s more than simply ordering your morning coffee and place an emphasis on the seasonal experience it provides.

They also highlight what it’s like to visit their new roastery. Viewers get a feel for what they’ll be walking into and what to expect. The video allows millennials to understand the experience they’ll get by going to the roastery, and how they might be able to share their visit on their own social channels.

So, if you’re trying to engage millennials on social media, make sure you’re weaving UGC into your content strategy, prioritizing authenticity in the content you share, and that you’re showing the experience users get from your brand.

It’s imperative to start incorporating these tactics into your social strategy, as millennials are a highly-sought after demographic, and their spending will only continue to increase as they head into more major life stages like home buying and family building. 

To learn even more about how to engage millennials on social media, download our 2022 Generational Marketing Playbook.