It seems to be a given these days that Facebook is an essential medium for marketers wishing to reach Millennial consumers. EMarketer projects spending on social media to grow steadily from $2,883 Billion in 2009 to $4,136 Billion in 2011. We are starting to see real case studies of the ROI associated with social media efforts (this video by SocialNomics does a nice job of summarizing the highlights).
As the age group most involved with Facebook and Myspace, it is considered essential to have a Facebook component to a Gen Y marketing effort. Yet, Millennials are still skeptical that this is the way marketers should reach them. Their behavior also suggests that marketers may not be all that welcome in social media. A new research report from Mintel (“Marketing to Millennials”) says just 18% of 18-24 year olds say they are a ‘friend/fan’ of a product, service or store on a social network site.
Today’s topic in my Principles of Marketing class was ‘advertising’. After reviewing the various types of traditional and alternative media, I zeroed in on social media, sharing a few graphs of the skyrocketing use of Facebook in terms of minutes and unique visitors. I then posed the same question posed on Brand Channel’s site this week: “Should marketers be devoting more or less of their advertising dollars to social media?” While the marketers at the Brand Channel said ‘yes’ — by a nearly 2:1 margin — very few of my forty students agreed.
The students were not averse to the idea of marketers reaching them through Facebook. Mostly they just thought it wouldn’t work. They say they ignore the ads, and fear that the ‘noise’ on these sites would simply make them ineffective at getting or holding attention. They weren’t convinced it was a ‘good idea’.
Alex K.: “Users accept ads on the sites, but may not pay attention. Additionally, larger ad compaigns can be seen by users as being intrusive and may create a negative impact on the product.”
Nneka E: “The Facebook and MySpace environments as a whole will make it more difficult for advertisers to induce ad veiwers to follow the AIDA concept because it is difficult to get the consumers’s immediate attetnion or interest… social networking advertising has a lot of noise because viewers are distracted by many other things.”
Mark K: “One major risk of advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook and Mysapce is that users may get annoyed by the ads and will disregard them.”
The students also universally pointed out the risk that advertisers face by advertising in an environment where they have no control over the content that accompanies their ads. The students’ answers are not that surprising to me. The same concerns have been expressed for years about television and newspaper advertising as well. The important take away is a reminder that building a social networking program that will gain both the attention and the respect of Millennials may be especially challenging.
