Generation Wh-Y Does it Matter?

Comments 14 November 2008

Yesterday I attended Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle. With only a total of 50 people in attendance, SMJ08 quickly became the #1 trending topic on twitter. It was amazing to be in a room full of such influential people in our industry. Chris Brogan, Jeremy Epstein, Leslie Poston, Howard Greenstein, Dean Landsman, Jeffrey Sass, Nelly Yusupova, Brett Petersel, Oz Sultan, Steve Lubetkin, Jonathan Yarmis, Ben Grossman, Jamie Thompson, and Justin Oberman were the discussion leaders who talked about many different topics.

However one thing I noticed was that the term “Gen-Y” or “Millennials” came up a lot. This term of course refers to my generation, people who were born between 1982–2001. They are sometimes described as an “overachieving, over scheduled” generation. Many people will also sub-define this generation into the “MTV-generation” born from 1985-1990.

One of the reasons that these terms are used so much in social media is because of all the stats associated with this generation.

97% own a computer

97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing

94% own a cell phone

76% use instant messaging and social networking sites

75% of college students have a Facebook profile and most of them check it daily.

60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod

49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing

34% use websites as their primary source of news

28% author a blog and 44% read blogs

15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week

8% have confessed to having an online gaming addiction at some point in their life

While I am sure all of this is true, I feel that as an industry we really need to stop categorizing our users into stereotypes. I am not a big person on terms and studies so the idea of categorizing all people born from one year to another as having the same habits, behaviors, etc, really upset me. Of course this is my personal belief and I’m am sure someone can argue the other side just as well, but I for one am so tired of hearing the “don’t put up drunk pictures on facebook” speech. (we know already, we aren’t stupid…well some of us are)

When I first started making videos and blogging a lot of my friends seemed worried. “What happens when you want to find a job, your employers are going to see this!” I answered, “I SURE HOPE SO!” What I do online speaks for me, but it speaks in a good way! I know that I have managed my digital life well and in a way that will only work to my advantage when I am being interviewed for a job.

I think in social media we should try and consider everything on a user-to-user basis, while you might not think that someone who is 50 wants to twitter, they might! What surprised me the most about all the talk of Gen-Yers yesterday was that I know so few people my age who are anxious to try new digital tools. The masses are happy with facebook and myspace! (I have no idea why) But maybe we should start to figure out a new term for people who use the tools that we use, cause I don’t think it has anything to do with age!

Yesterday one of the presenters was saying how he always says he is the oldest guy in social media and then he made a joke about how he still remembers his CompuServe ID. HELLO….I STILL REMEMBER MY COMPUSERVE ID! I have been using the internet for just as long, heck I still remember DOS prompts! We need to stop talking about age and start talking about the level of the user! Age is just a number.

That’s just my 2 cents!

« Walking in New York City

Building a theme »

Happy

Preach it sister!

David Ronnie

I think a lot of people that aren't IN Gen Y don't really understand how little most of us actually use it in the context of sales + personal branding. Or how few of us actually understand the possibilities of it. Something that the Gen Xers and Boomers seem to forget is that most of us in Gen Y are only just beginning our experiences in the work world (if we're even out of university yet). The implications of growing your network/visibility to increase sales or get a job, and the advantages of blogs + twitter to advance both of these aren't there yet. It's not a matter of being afraid of it, it just isn't where our priorities lie. As the bottom half of Gen Y moves more into their mid-20s you're going to start seeing a lot more personal brands, twitterers, etc. starting up IMHO.

Yeah, we're on Facebook/Myspace and we're practically connected 24/7, but most of us don't really use it for much else. Yet.

Drew Griffin

You make some interesting observations. I agree with most of them. It still amazes me that most people are afraid to have a digital presence and are fearful of an 'employer' finding out. I find it remarkable that people are still focused on gaining employment as opposed to owning a business. It speaks loudly of how students are taught to be dependent. Having a digital presence and expressing oneself creatively is a great way to show independence, free thinking and networking skills. Joining digital, and social communities can only be good to enhance one's understanding of commerce, trade, skills and the world.

Teresa

Hey Sarah,

I absolutely agree with you. Gen Y is totally diverse and it's very difficult to define how our generation is supposedly using these new digital tools because people like you and me probably do so very differently than the average college-age student.

Blogging and Twittering have only done me favors in terms of getting a job, networking with professionals, etc.

(Rohit Bhargava actually wrote a blog post about marketing to age groups that you might find interesting: http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2008/10...)

WaltRibeiro

Agreed. My online portfolio speaks for me, not against me. I would hope that as Gen-Y grows with the technology, and people become more comfortable with it, that they learn how to leverage it, rather than be afraid of it. New Media is Awsum :)

Howard Greenstein

Podcast Steve's reference to "Urban Gold Coast" psychographics was touted on Election night with breakdowns about contributions from different groups.
It also shows in calls for "soccer or hockey moms" or "joe sixpacks." We understand the shorthand, but no one wants to be in a shorthand group. However, we usually are in some way.
I remember back when I was in Advertising (late 80s) people used to want to buy "18-54 year old Women" as a demographic. "That's not a demographic," someone would always say, "that's a family reunion."
Your comments are very valid and reflect what's been going on in marketing for a very long time - bundling people into groups to sell to them.
The ability to use Social media to talk to people regardless of age, but more by their interest in a product, category, service, will be useful and helpful.
Many of us do buy things or take actions because we're a certain age or sex or race, but that isn't the only reason - your piece is a good wake up call to those not paying attention.

Sarah

Zane thank you for the kind words, I am flattered that Jeff tweeted about my post and I am glad that it made you smile! I can only hope that what we do continues to make people think every day.

Zane Safrit

Oh. Bless your heart! Being 53....this just makes me smile. And chuckle. And you're so right.

Thanks for sharing and yes, what you're writing here does represent you in a good way. I hope more people find you. Jeff Pulver's tweet this morning helped me.

Steven Lubetkin

Sarah, it was great meeting you at Social Media Jungle, and I think your caveats about pigeonholing people of any generation are quite valid. I think what tends to happen at these kinds of conferences is we need to have a short-hand frame of reference for demographics and we use the terms, but it's really about trying to understand how a broad swath of the population in a particular demographic group thinks.

A few years ago Claritas developed a demographic breakdown of populations that included some cute, media-friendly descriptors like "Furs and Station Wagons," and "Urban Gold Coast," as demographic groups.

The problem is usually people have so many words they want to say in a short time, that they presume everything about demographics has been pre-qualified.

Great post and very interesting stats. I would also refer readers to Jeffrey Zaslow's excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal "The Most Praised Generation Goes to Work," (only available on Factiva now) for some of the generational conflicts that appear to be happening in the workplace between Gen Y and Boomers who just don't try to understand the differences.

Darryl Parker

I sometimes feel my white & gray hair will eventually knock me out of the hip crowd that I'll be looked upon as some out of touch old fogie...

...

HA! Just kidding. Not about the hair though...

Brilliance and passion shine through at any age. Great observation.

jeffpulver

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for spending the time with us at the first Social Media Jungle. I appreciated hearing your perspectives during the event and I believe your voice should be and will be heard by more people. :)

jorge

I think that for classification Gen Y is ok, but unuseful for marketing purposes. Gen Yers have many different interests and uses and we need to segment people by biography (what they do and what they like). But i don't think we need to classify people at all. Web gives us the ability to create relationships and we cannot classify a relationship into "relationships with middle age tech geeks" (for example). We need to live them, that's the beauty of it.

But of course for "traditional marketing" purposes that classification seems to work. It does, e.g ...we all use computers hence they can sell us computers, but they can sell us a lot of configurations of computers based on our use and they are not doing it. That's why it works but not completely.

I think the future will be more about relationships with users and costumers and less about statistical classifications of people. It is like that with some companies and services, but it will go mainstream.

As Gary V. says ...wait until Oprah uses twitter.

Leslie Poston

Great points, but then I prefer to work with your age bracket on projects (although I'm not sure I would market to you directly, as that is not the kind of marketing those in the Gen Y bracket seem to respond to).

Sarah

I think it goes beyond age being just a number, to the fact that in most cases I feel that people my age are being marketed as early adopters, when the truth is most of them aren't! Don't market your start-up to them because chances are, they don't care.

JustinSMV

I agree age is just a number but I guess the main difference is that Generation Next has been accustomed to technology more so than the previous generations. Either case a love for social media can be expressed by anybody and I still remember the 108 yr old blogger in the news :)