{"id":615529,"date":"2023-03-08T08:49:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T14:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/08\/how-marketers-are-adapting-to-reach-siloed-audiences-in-a-fragmented-social-media-landscape\/"},"modified":"2023-03-08T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T14:49:50","slug":"how-marketers-are-adapting-to-reach-siloed-audiences-in-a-fragmented-social-media-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/08\/how-marketers-are-adapting-to-reach-siloed-audiences-in-a-fragmented-social-media-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"How marketers are adapting to reach siloed audiences in a fragmented social media landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of an eight-article editorial series that explores the ramifications of a fragmented social marketplace. More from the series \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

The ever-changing social media landscape has become fragmented<\/a> in recent years, making it more difficult for marketers as they not only need to create additional content to target specific niches<\/a>, but do so as platforms\u2019 algorithms continue to evolve.<\/p>\n

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[Agencies] have to be balancing reach with engagement.<\/p>\n

Hannah Hickman, Sparks & Honey\u2019s vp of client strategy and head of youth culture<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a far cry from when millennials were arranging (and rearranging) their top five friends on Myspace. Marketers can no longer take a one-size-fits all approach to targeting users of a certain age, according to marketers and agency executives who say that there\u2019s simply too much content and too many ways to consume it for that approach. So marketers have had to diversify their spend \u2014 and content \u2014 to reach different audiences with different needs. At the same time, those audiences have only become more siloed across social media channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor agencies\u2019 media spend, it used to be \u2018let\u2019s put the dollars where we can get the biggest audience\u2019 and that was on places like Instagram or like Facebook,\u201d said Hannah Hickman, Sparks & Honey\u2019s vp of client strategy and head of youth culture. \u201cBut now they have to be balancing reach with engagement.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s more important for brands today to have different strategies depending on the platform, particularly when targeting Gen Z, Hickman said. That means agencies spend more time with clients to rethink what it takes to understand and engage with the audience they want to reach on a particular social channel. This includes investing in different kinds of data and platforms as well as restructuring processes around partnerships and content creation.<\/p>\n

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The platform differences may not be clear to all marketers, but the differences are clear for their users.<\/p>\n

Liz Cole, executive director, U.S. head of social at VMLY&R<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

This need to focus on the particular kind of content that may work with a specific audience on a specific platform has led to silos for marketers. As social channels continue to prioritize these silos \u2014 people who like role-playing games or Y2K fashion or whatever niche interest they have all talking to each other \u2014 marketers have to speak to said silos to breakthrough to those audiences, according to marketers and agency execs who say doing so is even more important when talking to younger generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe platform differences may not be clear to all marketers, but the differences are clear for their users,\u201d said Liz Cole, executive director, U.S. head of social at VMLY&R. \u201cIt\u2019s up to marketers to use marketing research to stay aware of what motivates their target audiences to consume media via each platform. For example, anecdotally, Instagram is seen as more curated and more aspirational than TikTok, where TikTok is seen as more authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move away from mass cultures toward niche cultures isn\u2019t necessarily a problem. There is a unique opportunity in being able to reach a small subset of people who care a lot about what a particular brand has to say, said Yuvay Meyers Ferguson, an associate professor at Howard University.<\/p>\n

It gives marketers a new chance to target their audiences, said Wendy Mei, head of corporate strategy at map-based social media platform Playsee. She said she has seen shifts in the types of users among channels, rather than a full out segregation of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo longer is it viable for marketers to reach consumers through generic channels and messaging,\u201d said Mei. \u201cInstead, marketers should focus on location-based content that literally hits home with the audiences they are trying to reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driven by Gen Z<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This change has been largely driven by the new golden demographic among marketers: Gen Z, who have new expectations for the types of content they want to see online (think genuine, authentic and timely). Marketers are chasing that demographic across channels: YouTube, Instagram and TikTok based on their interests, as each platform would require its own strategy<\/a>, as TikTok is for short-form videos, YouTube has longer videos and Instagram is seen as a place for self expression.<\/p>\n

Younger audiences have a broader range of preferences for authentic content made popular via TikTok, and this shift has influenced both platforms and creators to provide more genuine content, according to marketers.<\/p>\n

At the same time, marketing experts suggest that Instagram has become more challenging for marketers<\/a> due to its constant algorithm changes to keep up with TikTok, making it difficult to develop a consistent content strategy for the platform.<\/p>\n

Gen Z are big users of YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. According to a December 2022 survey by Morning Consult<\/a>, YouTube is the most-used platform for Gen Z, with 88% of them spending time on it, with Instagram in second place with 76% and TikTok in third with 68%.<\/p>\n

The year 2022 was further muddled as platforms including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram created copycat features to stay ahead of TikTok, as Digiday previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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As long as marketers stay aware of what motivates audiences to use each platform, they shouldn\u2019t find issue with reaching the specific audiences they hope to communicate with.<\/p>\n

Yuvay Meyers Ferguson, associate professor at Howard University<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWith different social media platforms becoming more and more alike, we have found authentic experiences and a focus on community is the only type of content that breaks through the noise,\u201d said Mei, adding that marketers need to adapt content to every platform \u2014 \u201cnot only in terms of media, but also making the content tone and aesthetic fit the medium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silos lead to green shoots<\/h2>\n

Not all industry experts see these silos as a challenge. With the availability of more consumer information and targeted messaging strategies now commonplace on social media platforms, marketing experts say it is not difficult to target specific audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as marketers stay aware of what motivates audiences to use each platform, they shouldn\u2019t find issue with reaching the specific audiences they hope to communicate with,\u201d said Meyers Ferguson.<\/p>\n

The siloed effect could push the industry to embrace changing consumer insights and content trends, said Ksenia Kurganova, YouTube\u2019s marketing manager based in Moscow City, Russia. This is especially true when it comes to Gen Z. \u201cMarketers must scrutinize their audience\u2019s natural habitats to reach Gen Z because each platform has different formats and content rules and fulfills different needs,\u201d said Kurganova.<\/p>\n

In addition to scrolling on social media while watching a movie or show, Gen Z also keeps their attention constantly engaged with a screen, which is an option that only digital natives really understand, said Erifili Gounari, founder and CEO of The Z Link, a Gen Z-led social media agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes [Gen Zers] consume media more absentmindedly, and do more things at once but with less focus,\u201d said Gounari.<\/p>\n

However, brands must keep up with where Gen Z is, with the emergence of new social media platforms such as BeReal and Hive<\/a>, despite the fact that those platforms haven\u2019t gained much traction yet. As Kurganova said, \u201cBrands should not limit themselves to one platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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