Social Media usage by Millennials

Who are millennials?

Social media is a constant in the lives of western millennials. There is some dispute on how to categorize millennials. According to Wikipedia, millennials were born anytime between the late 1980s to the early 2000s. “Millennials are shaping the twenty-first century” according to Shaper Survey 2017.

According to TechTarget, Millennials have grown up surrounded by electronics, technology and social media. This generation is one that has received the most popular marketing attention. This is mainly down to the fact that Millennials tend to be tolerant when it comes to change. They have been raised in a certain way, making them feel ‘special’ and boosting their confidence as they get older.

TechTarget Statistics also show that Millennials have the highest number of Facebook friends, containing an average of 250. 55% post selfies on a regular basis to various social media sites. They send roughly 50 texts a day if not more.

Millennials in Ireland

According to Gretchen Hoffman and his recent studies, Facebook is the most popular social media platform used by Millennials. Majority of Millennials that use social media most frequently are female. This can be down to a number of reasons:

• 83% of Millennials consult at least one social media platform when making the decision of doing online shopping & looking into fashion categories. This is good for business’s who target Millennials on social media, using appropriate advertising during the right time of year such as winter clothes when coming up to christmas.
• 28% are known as ”social shoppers” – This refers to women whose buying decisions are based on the products and brands used mainly by their friends. This is appropriate for all ages of Millennials.

 

Admin presents this graph, showing the usage of different social media sites in Ireland. Facebook is the most popular social media platform, just as it is in majority of other countries. Facebook is the first place Millennials will go after something exciting has happened, e.g. posting birthday pictures on Facebook, monitoring how many likes one gets on their profile picture etc, all this is very exciting to them. Millennials also now tend to use Facebook Messenger more frequently for texting friends.

Instagram being one of the second most popular, also owned by facebook, has an entirely different use to Millennials. It is only used for image sharing, and does not include posting statuses of new updated sections on their websites. Hashtags are often used, making it easier for users when searching for a specific image.

One of the most popular social media sites today is Snapchat – Which is not included in the graph above. According to Robert McHugh, 83% of Millennials use snapchat in Ireland today. This figure has been constantly increasing since 2015, as a lot of the younger population is now beginning to use this social media platform.