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Social Content Creation and Sharing Generational Differences
Generation Z have a more optimistic and have a positive outlook on creating and sharing content on social media platforms than millennials.
OVERVIEW
- Millennials prefer to consume content rather than to create because they only want to see what their friends are doing and stay up to date with news (43%), be entertained (42%), build their network (37%), see their friends (35%), share their opinion (32%), research products they wish to buy (32%), and meet new people.
- Gen Z are more optimistic and have a positive outlook towards creating content to be shared on social media because it gives them a sense of pride in their creativity, which is important to them.
MILLENNIALS
- On average, millennials used social media 6 to 7 hours per week in 2017.
- Millennials are considered to be optimistic, collaborative, digital pioneers, public (i.e. to share their lives on Facebook), and more likely to be formally educated.
- Facebook is the preferred social media platform for millennials because it allows them to keep a history of their life online but they also prefer video entertainment, with over 50% millennials visiting YouTube at least once a day.
- GlobalWeblndex found that in 2018, millennials spent 2 hours and 38 minutes every day on several social media platforms, with an average of 9 social media accounts.
- 44% of millennials use social media to pass the time without necessarily posting any content. Instead, they simply browse to see what is happening on networks such as Facebook (38%) and Instagram (31%).
- They are motivated to use social media to see what their friends are doing and stay up to date with news (43%), be entertained (42%), build their network (37%), share content such as pictures and videos (35%), catch up with their friends (35%), share their opinion (32%), research products they wish to buy (32%) and meet new people.
- Even though millennials like to show their lives on Facebook, creating and sharing content is not popular among them.
GENERATION Z
- Less than 50% of Gen Z tend to use social media on an hourly basis. They are considered to be realistic, independent, digital natives, private (i.e. have a preference for timebound content sharing) and are more likely to pursue education online.
- Snapchat is the preferred social media platform for Gen Z because it allows for private engagement with friends and does not store their pictures or videos.
- 95% of Gen Z prefer YouTube and watch videos, with 50% of them expressing a very strong preference for YouTube compared to other platforms.
- Gen Z only spend eight seconds watching videos and are savvy when choosing content to watch, suggesting that their attention span is short.
- They tend to use social media more for content consumption or to pass the time rather than keeping/maintaining contact with their friends.
- 51% of Gen Z use social media to pass the time, 47% find entertaining content, 46% keep in contact with friends, 42% stay updated with news, and 38% share their pictures or videos.
- They have an average of 7 social media accounts and are very picky when deciding where to share their content.
- On average, they spend close to 3 hours on social media every day and tend to use both Instagram and Snapchat more than millennials but use Facebook and Twitter less than millennials.
- 80% of Gen Z believe that their own creativity is important to them, which leads to more than 25% of them posting an original video on social media every week while 65% of them enjoy both creating and sharing content.
ANALYSIS
- Gen Z (77%) and millennials (77%) equally prefer to post images on their social media pages but Facebook is more popular with millennials (87%) than it is with Gen Z (36%).
- Millennials tend to search for "quick synopses of major stories" on social media rather than sharing or creating content.
- They enjoy personalized news on Instagram, 53% of them check Snapchat on a daily basis and use Twitter to follow their favorite celebrities (Source 6)
- Over half of millennials consume social media for news while only a third of them like to share content on social media, the majority of which are images (77%).
- Only 35% of millennials are interested in sharing content on social media but not necessarily content that they have created on their own.
- Gen Z are more optimistic and have a positive outlook on creating content for social media because it gives them a sense of pride in their creativity, which is important to them.
- Due to this level of optimism and positivity, less than a third of them create original videos while more than half of them enjoy creating and sharing content on social media.
- Therefore, using social media for content creation and sharing is more important for Gen Z than it is for millennials.