Sharing Across The Ages

As social media marketing continues to cement its place in advertising, it's important not only to understand what platforms are available, but also to focus on how the platforms themselves are perceived in terms of trust. Accenture Interactive's Acquity Group's 2015 Next Generation of Commerce Study looked at different age groups to see how they perceived products marketed on social media, as well as how they interacted with some of the content. It's no surprise to anyone that the varied age groups interact with social media in drastically different ways. For instance, while 48.13% of those ages 23-30 have tried a new product or service they read about on social media, only 13.59% of those 69 or older have. However, when it comes to sharing content, it appears that there are no major differences across the ages. Content from friends and family is much more likely to be shared by all groups, whereas posts by celebrities promoting brands are very unlikely to be shared. One interesting take away from the study was the level of “trustworthiness” of brand content on different platforms. Surprisingly, brands on Facebook are rated as more trustworthy than featured content in newspaper, e-mail, or television. Snapchat in particular seems to be showing that its popularity doesn't necessarily make it a key advertising platform – yet. Only 5.33% of those ages 18-22 say they've been influenced to a new product by Snapchat. When you look at older groups, that number drops as low as .26%. Combined with Snapchat rating in as one of the least trusted platforms gives more evidence that the platform has more maturing to do in the eyes of the public. The data from this study goes a long way in helping understand what platforms offer the most significant influence, as well helping shape the strategy that goes into planning your social media presence. Read more here.