There's a heap of talk online about the importance of reaching Millennials, how Millennials will soon be the most lucrative and desirable demographic to reach (if they're not already) and how brands need to speak Millennial language to appeal to this new generation of consumers. And there's two sides to this - on one hand, Millennials are just like anyone else. They expect you to listen to their concerns, to offer solutions and to be there when they need you. But that's really everyone ever, right? That's customer service 101, it's just that Millennials are more accustomed to social media communications, so the medium has shifted.
But as pointed out by Social Media Today contributor Tom Bachmann recently, it's also important to understand the contextual differences in how Millennials have grown up and the environment they were born into. They've never known a world where the internet didn't exist, where they weren't able to get instant answers, to connect and search online.
In this respect, they do need to be treated differently - or at least, brands need to recognize that their learned behaviors are inevitably different to the generations before them. And it's important to understand how that impacts their expectations from your business.
In this context, it's worth taking note of this new infographic from LinkedIn which examines data on Millennials who actively use their platform. Among their research, LinkedIn found that there are currently 87 million Millennials on their network - around 38% of their entire user base. There's also a lot of interest in Millennials on the site, with 16 million searches on the term 'Millennial' conducted, and more than 43,000 articles written about Millennials shared across their network.
There's also some interesting notes on what subjects Millennials engage with most, helping to guide your content strategy to reach this demographic.
The full infographic is below.