Teenagers Can Drive Social Media Exposure for ANY Business!

While working on our recent posts regarding Getting People Posting on Social Media about your Small Business and Marketing to Children, I was struck by a thought. The thought was about just how “connected” our teens are to social media. Expanding on that thought, it occurred to me that the traditional idea of older adults being the most likely to pass on referral business is likely to be outdated these days, given that teens will post about almost everything they do to their average of 500 friends/followers. Delving into this train of thought a little more, there were some interesting things which came to mind and thus, the idea to write this post.

Facts about Teens on Social Media

• A vast majority of those aged 13-20 are active on more than one social media platform
• Number of friends and/or followers averages 500
• Most will have older family members, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents connected (also very likely to check the teen’s posts)
• Are very keen to be first to share something, but also,
• Very likely to follow trends once someone they know has

So what do all these facts mean? How can we make use of this?

Does your business appeal to teenagers?

You don’t have to be targeting teens as customers, but is there anything about your business that could appeal to them? It could be that your auto shop has a shamefully cheesy poster for them to roll their eyes at or an arcade machine in the corner for them to mess with while the parents are busy. My point is that it doesn’t take a lot to attract the bored eyes of a teenager and the more obscure, the better. If your business is not specifically targeted at them, they are likely to be on their phone anyway, furtively looking around for something to ease the boredom.

Why not give them something to look at and a reason to post about you?

Simple ideas to try out

If there is any chance at all that you will have teenagers hanging around, or indeed, if you do target teens as customers, take a look at some of these ideas and consider trying them out. Don’t mention anything about posting it, hashtags, or anything else. Let the teen “discover it” and then let their natural desire to post things take its course.

• Knick-knacks: a collection of weird and wonderful things left lying around for them to poke around
• Posters/Images which are simply unusual enough to take a picture of
• Posters with cheesy one-liners and puns. As much as they groan when their dad says one, this type of humor is actually extremely popular among teens.
• Any kind of display where they can insert themselves and take a picture. It can be a designated head-in-hole idea or something creatively put together.
• Staff who say hello/interact with them create a positive vibe too, often causing them to take a look around
• Some unusual candy in a bowl or jar. Needs to be unusual but not necessarily expensive, a standard sucker is not photo worthy.

There really is very little to lose in trying out these or other ideas. They are low cost, easy to do and will not annoy or alienate your other customers. Give them a try today.

Contact us for help

At Colorado Canopies, we can provide excellent quality posters, prints and wall hangings as well as a huge array of items to help make creative displays. We also appreciate a good pun too!