Paper Example on Corporate Use of Mass Communication That Appeals to Generation Y

Introduction

Generation Y consumers refer to a population that is born in the 1980s and '90s. They are known for their zealous use of social media and their drastic and different view of companies and businesses in a manner that causes them to stand out. To them, companies are made up of authentic people. To properly understand this market's behavior, companies implement new ranges of communication tactics that include influencers and content marketers to establish genuine conversations through social media platforms while also concentrating on the bottom line.

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It's quite cumbersome to market to millennials (Barysevich, 2016). It is therefore vital for companies to understand the structure and behavior of the millennial market to come up with appropriate communication strategies. They are known to be highly budget conscious, skeptical consumers and underemployed; all of which are traits that make it difficult to hold on them. However, according to Fallon (2014), this generation is graduating from college and entering the full-time workforce, renting and purchasing homes and spending their disposable income thereby making them an attractive target market to brands and marketers. Mass communication involves a study on how people exchange their information through the mass media to large proportions of the target market with amazing speeds while developing their brands. Companies, therefore, incorporate various mass communication strategies that appeal to the millennial market. They include:

The use of Social Media Platforms such as Facebook and Other Online Platforms

Millennials want brands that socialize with them and make them a part of their conversation to enable them to participate in the life of the brand. This helps to build the company brand while reaching a wide customer market. However, the best platform to engage with them is social media. According to Barysevich (2016), while 90 % of young adults use social media platforms, a third of millennials prefer those channels when it comes to communicating with businesses. In this case, companies not only create a brand page on these platforms, but they also come up with strategies on how to engage from these channels.

They do this by posting relevant and interesting questions on their page that would incorporate the market's views, start the conversation to find the people that are potentially interested in their products and replying to mentions of the brand while conversing with the customers. Engaging in conversations with customers draws more millennials to the site as they give out their concerns regarding the product making it easy for information to reach the larger market at a faster rate.

Using Self-Expression in its Communication and Marketing Processes

Branding and proper communication go hand in with self-expression. A communication process that properly interacts with the customer's self-expression tends to reach and attract a large proportion of the market. According to Barysevich (2016), approximately 60% of millennials view the brands they buy as a reflection of their style and personality. Millennials express their personality in a myriad of ways. Companies can, therefore, communicate in a manner that would appeal to this market by relating the brand to their audience's image of themselves.

Studies indicate that millennials are willing to pay extra for a brand that offers products or services that reflect the image they would like to convey about themselves (Naumovska, 2017). The firms can also invite them to respond to their need for self-expression using their brand, i.e., requesting them to share their ideas, photos, and stories and this would easily reach out to a large portion of the market that share in the expression.

Communicating Through the Market Experience

The millennial market values experience over the products or services. They are more ardent on spending their life experiencing things as reflected in the increased spending within the entertainment sector, i.e., music events, travel, and festivals. Studies show that 78% of millennials prefer and are more attracted to spending money on a desirable experience to buying something desirable. To ensure mass communication, brands can communicate their product or services based on their market experiences to appeal to a large proportion of the market. It can do this by sponsoring live events and offering deals that provide experiences rather than additional products.

Use of Websites to Validate Their Brands

Millennials are innate researchers when it comes to shopping. According to Naumovska (2015), 80% of them won't select or buy a product or service without going through the reviews present online. Brands can communicate strategically and appeal to the market by demonstrating their expertise and trustworthiness through the reviews obtained from already served clients. They do this by taking care of the reviews they already have, encouraging their customers to share their experiences online and adding social media influencers to its networking circle. It would help to reach out to a large portion of the market through the use of the company's website as well as the social media influencers.

Customer Referrals i.e. Millennial to Millennial

According to Fallon (2014), due to the widespread use of social media to identify and learn about products, millennials have a higher likelihood to buy from a brand that has been referred to them by a friend, rather than one that has been seen in an advertisement. They value trust and seek opinions from those who have already used the product or service or refer to user-generated reviews like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Brands should, therefore, focus on building relationships that would enhance easier and faster passage of information to the greater market than just focusing on selling their products or services.

Conclusion

To conclude, just like any other generation, millennials are also influenced by culture and the world that is developing around them. Moreover, the changing social dynamics and technology have also a profound effect on the actions and beliefs of millennials as well as how information is communicated to them (Gailewicz, 2018). Mass communicating to the millennial market in 2019 isn't qualitatively different form that of 2017/2018. Businesses and their brands should establish more creative and personal approaches that would improve mass communication and better control of social media.

References

Barysevich, A. (2016). Marketing to Millennials in 2017: 5 Things to Change in Your Business. Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/marketing-millennials-2017-5-things-change-your-business

Fallon, N. (2014). Marketing to Millennials: How to Capture Gen Y Consumers. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6602-selling-to-generation-y.html

Gailewicz, J. (2014). Marketing to Millennials: The consumers to change the market landscape. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/03/29/meet-millennials-consumers-change-marketing-landscape/

Naumovska, L. (2017). Marketing Communication Strategies for Generation Y-Millennials. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317341070_Marketing_Communication_Strategies_for_Generation_Y_-_Millennials