Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Generational Content Gap

Since serving on the board of a non-profit performing arts organization, I've often wondered about the effectiveness of our social media efforts. Are we connecting with our preferred demographic? What social media platform is the most effective? Are we reaching other audiences?  So I was intrigued when I happened upon a blog by Andrea Lehr entitled, "Exposing the Generational Content Gap: Three Way to Reach Multiple Generations."

The data she cited was based on a 2015 survey of over 1200 individuals conducted by BuzzStream and Fractl. The study divided respondents into three groups: Millennials (born between 1977-1995), Generation X (born between 1965-1976), and Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964) Their findings were, for me, surprising and, at the same time, reassuring.

Right off the bat, I was surprised that Baby Boomers were consumers of the most content, followed by Gen Xers, and then Millennials. The survey noted that more than 25 percent of the Boomers consumed 20 or more hours each week, and their preference was to consume this content earlier in the day. My guess would have been the reverse, that Millennials would be consuming the most content. This was very enlightening.

I was reassured by several other findings.

1. Preferred content types and lengths span all three generations, and
2. Facebook is the preferred content sharing platform across all three generations.

It was reassuring to see under content types that "Entertainment" was the favorite content searched for by all three generations. This is good to know, since I'm involved with a performing arts organization. And, although our activities on Facebook are a bit lack-luster, at least were using one of the most popular platforms. 

Lehr's blog was full of other facts and figures too numerous to share here, but it helped validate for me that what we're doing with social media seems to be right on track.

Here are a few of the infographics used in the blog.



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