The social media generation gap: some click to Like, and some just like to click.
In the last week, two separate studies have been released that look at how consumers interact with brands on social media. We always love it when two independent sources confirm the findings, so we decided to share both studies in one post. Both studies focus on how different types of consumers interact with brands on social media sites. The “American Millennials” survey, conducted by Barkley surveyed over 3,000 Millennials aged 16-34. The SocialCode study examined over four million data points for ads containing a ‘Like’ button across over 50 clients in different verticals for the past ten months and analyzed trends across age and gender demographics.
The bottom line: younger adults are more likely to check out brands on social media sites, and they are more likely to hit the “Like” button on Facebook. But don’t take down your web site down just yet: older consumers prefer to click, not like. On average, CTR’s are 30% higher for consumers age 50+.
Millennials and Brands on Social Media (from “American Millennials“):
- over half of consumers ages 16 to 34, 53%, liked checking out brands on social media sites. That compared with just 36% of older adults.
- 33% of Millennials like brands more if they use social media, nearly double the percentage of older adults who said the same (17%).
- One-third of Millennials (33%) agreed with the statement that they “find brands on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter annoying” — but only 25% of older adults agreed with the same statement.
- Nearly one in four Millennials (23.5%) interacted with content from a brand’s Facebook page at least once a daily, vs. 17% of older adults who did the same.
- Overall, older adults were nearly twice as likely never to engage with brand content on Facebook.
Older Adults and Brands on Social Media (from the SocialCode study)
- 50+ year-old users, the oldest segment in the study, are 28% more likely to click through and 9% less likely to ‘Like’ than 18-29 year-old users, the youngest group observed.
- 50+ users see a 23% higher CTR and 8% percent lower ‘Like’ rate when compared to the rest of the population studied.
Gender and Brands on Social Media (from the SocialCode study)
- Overall, women are 11% more likely to click on an ad.
- ‘Like’ rates are almost even for men and women; men are actually 2.2 percent more likely to ‘Like’ an ad than women.
- For women, CTR is 31% higher for the 50+ age group versus 18-29 year olds, men only see a 16% difference between the age groups.
