7 Social Media Marketing Lessons Brands Can Learn From Teens

Think back to the most successful social networks. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, they all have one thing in common. They really exploded when teens started using them. Similarly, when you think of failed social networks, you’ll notice they were unable to hold the attention of a younger audience.

Here’s another trend to take note of. Aside from celebrities, the most engaging accounts on social media are usually teen stars. Whether it’s Lauren Giraldo or Hayes Grier, the fact of the matter is teens have social media marketing figured out.

In fact, they’ve been able to achieve greater success than large brands with million dollar marketing budgets, by using nothing but an iPhone and creativity. Teen social media stars are so popular that brands end up paying them to help grow their own accounts through sponsorships, giveaways and other campaigns. Social media influencer is an actual career now, and teens are dominating it.

The question is, what are they doing that brands aren’t?

1. They’re Not Trying to Sell

The first big difference between the way brands and teens use social media is that companies have a sales-first mentality.

When selling is your objective, it puts a filter on every piece of content you share.

You’re not focused on creating entertaining and compelling content. You’re thinking of how you can create something that will generate leads.

Teens on the other hand don’t care about sales when they produce content. They only care about the content. So there’s no “agenda” behind their Instagram posts, YouTube videos or Tweets. Since they aren’t looking at social media through a filter, they can use it for its intended purpose.

2. Teens Document, Brands Create

When you look at the Instagram feeds of popular brands, a lot of the content is custom-made for the purpose of Instagram. Product photoshoots, custom graphics to promote posts and Instagram contests fill their feeds.

On the flipside, if you look at the feeds of your favorite Instagram star, you’ll see a lot more photos and videos they took while they were in the moment. In other words, they’re not constantly forcing content, they’re just documenting what’s going on.

When you’re documenting instead of creating, your content is much more organic and relatable.

That doesn’t mean product shots and “staged” content doesn’t have a place on social media. But if your brand can start to share more organic content, it’ll likely resonate better.

3. Teens Work Together

One of the “secrets” teens use to grow their accounts is collaborating with their friends and other social media influencers. With each collab, they earn new followers from the people they’re working with.

Brands on the other hand tend to keep their efforts in-house.

Wanting to build your own audience is great, but collaborating with other companies will get you there a lot faster.

One of the reasons teen collabs work so well is they aren’t doing it for the sole purpose of gaining new followers. They do it because it gives them the opportunity to create something unique and have fun.

Think of creative ways you can work with other brands on social media like hosting a live stream together or doing a joint Ask Me Anything.

4. Teens Adapt Quickly

One of the worst mistakes brands make with social media is refusing to try new networks or adapt to changes on existing ones. Whether it’s due to fear, uncertainty or other reasons, a lot of brands wait until long after a new network “pops” to get on board.

You can’t be afraid to try new social networks.

Teens on the other hand jump from network to network at the drop of a dime. Blame it on short attention spans or the desire to try new things, but teens will switch to the next buzzing social network without hesitation.

You don’t have to be quite that daring and adventurous, but you should have an open mind. For instance, Snapchat has gotten to a point where it should be on every company’s radar. Even if you don’t have a perfectly laid out plan on how you’ll implement it, you should at least get started.

5. Teens Show Their Appreciation

How often do you thank your audience for following you, engaging with your content and helping you grow your brand?

Teen social media influencers constantly show their appreciation for their audience by taking time to reply to comments, holding spontaneous giveaways and just saying thank you.

Instead of trying to figure out what they can get out of their audience, they think of ways to give back and provide value to them. They’ll even ask followers for new content ideas, which makes them feel valued and appreciated.

Stop taking a self-serving approach to social media, and put your audience first.

6. Teens Have Fun

Social media wasn’t created to be a chore that you have to do out of necessity. It’s supposed to be fun and entertaining.

But since some companies look at social media strictly as a marketing tool, the fun gets sucked out of it. While certain tasks like replying to upset customers on Twitter might not be the most enjoyable thing in the world, other activities like sharing content and engaging with your audience should be fun.

Unlike companies that use social media because they think they need to, teens use it because they want to. Even if they couldn’t make a penny from it, they’d still use it because it’s a part of their everyday life and they genuinely enjoy it.

When you (or your social media team) aren’t enthusiastic about the content you share or social media, it shows.

Whoever’s in charge of your profiles should be passionate about social media, your brand and industry.

7. Post Consistently

Since teens have fun on social media, they enjoy posting new content. That means they publish new content almost every day, if not daily. Not only that, but they publish to multiple profiles.

Some companies will go days without publishing any new content on social media, then wonder why they’re not seeing any engagement or growth.

Since social media content has such a short lifespan (less than 24 hours in most cases) the less often you post the more forgettable you become.

Plus, with so many social networks switching to algorithm based feeds, you can’t afford to lose any extra chances for engagement. Develop a regular posting cadence and stick to it.

The Best of Both Worlds

You most likely won’t be able to use social media the exact same way teens do. Businesses have different goals and some restrictions that teen don’t have to worry about. How wild would it look if Coca Cola went on epic Twitter rants when something negative happened? But you can still learn a lot from the way teens view and use social media.

Adopt some of these best practices into your social media strategy to build a more engaged audience.