2022 Youth Social Media Usage Report: TikTok and YouTube are the 'youngest' platforms
According to the latest data report of the Pew Research Center, a private research agency, TikTok has been and was one of the most popular social media platforms for American teenagers, and the proportion of teenagers using Facebook is extremely declining.
According to the report's data, 13-17 year olds' love for TikTok continues to soar, with 67% of respondents saying they have used it, and 16% of teens saying they have used TikTok almost all the time. In a 2014-15 survey by the Pew Research Center, Facebook was used by 71 percent of teens, and today that number has dropped to 32 percent.
It should be noted, however, that this survey focused on 13-17 year olds, which means that TikTok is more popular among teens, while Facebook is still widely used among adult users.
Therefore, we share the core data of the report, and summarize the social media marketing points that overseas brands should pay attention to when dealing with young people.
01
Among teens, the social media landscape has changed
The survey covered a total of 10 social media platforms, and the findings showed:
YouTube is the platform most frequently used by teens, with 95% saying they have or are using it;
TikTok is the second most popular at 67%.
But considering that TikTok has only been developing in the United States for a few years, its popularity has grown rapidly. We can also see in the chart below that TikTok lacks 2014-15 comparative data, and this emerging platform is rapidly occupying the minds of overseas teenage users.
As a leading one-stop global social media data marketing management platform, Marketing Cloud has recently officially accessed TikTok's official API data to support TikTok's enterprise account authorization management and data analysis. This function can support brands to authorize their own TikTok enterprise account to access the platform, and more quickly realize the needs of data monitoring, one-click posting and interaction management.
For overseas brands, it is an excellent help to better adapt to the development of global TikTok users' preferences and behavior habits, including young users, in the domestic marketing environment.
In addition to the different platform preferences caused by different ages, gender factors also have a certain influence on the choice of social media platforms for teenagers.
Teenage girls are more likely to have used TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat;
Boys are more likely to have used Twitch and Reddit;
At the same time, the usage ratio of YouTube is higher than that of girls.
02
How do overseas brands capture the hearts of overseas teenagers?
Teenage users are growing. This part of users has certain financial resources at their disposal, but they cannot afford larger shopping expenses, but they are enthusiastic, active, trend-setting, and more sensitive to the brand's marketing content. They are fashion, technology, etc. The users that the overseas brands in the field must strive for.
So, in the face of the changing social media landscape among teenagers, how should brands respond and capture the hearts of overseas teenagers? Combined with the experience in the social media marketing process of serving overseas brands and the data on the social media usage habits of teenagers in the report, the following suggestions are given:
- Use visual expressions:
Whether it is YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, these social media platforms have their obvious characteristics, that is, they use "visual" content as the main carrier.
For teenagers who grew up with the Internet, only high-density information and extremely impactful content can attract their attention, so pictures and videos, which can carry more content than text, are more suitable for their tastes.
It is also for this reason that Facebook and Twitter are used very little among teens.
The visual content on these two platforms is less, there are no beautiful or impactful pictures and videos to catch the attention of teenagers, and there is no brainwashing or ear-grabbing soundtrack with YouTube and TikTok, so for teenagers The amount of content information on the two platforms is too small to keep up with their fast and eccentric thinking and preferences.
- In-depth "niche" topics:
Today’s teens are more self-conscious, and they choose to interact with brands or content to demonstrate their choices and propositions. Therefore, when selecting content topics, brands should avoid "fake and empty", and should go deep into the niche market to find the intersection between their own brands and teenagers' preferences, and use this as the topic to create brand social media content. .
If you need more content inspiration, you can find popular content and topics on major social media platforms and different industries in the "Material" - "Hot Posts" and "Hot Topics" of Marketing Cloud, and you can also choose to add They are housed in your inspiration library to guide content creation.
- Demonstrate social responsibility:
Although the current youth group is "maverick", among them, concerns about social issues are also an important issue for them to show their attitudes.
Brands, especially those with a certain scale, should not be stingy with their voices on social issues, such as low carbon, environmental protection, and attention to disadvantaged and minority groups, which will shorten the distance between your brand and young users.
Epilogue
At the end of the report, most teens said that despite feeling like they spent too much time on social media platforms, it was difficult for them to quit social media entirely. Younger social media, represented by TikTok and YouTube, will continue to gain the recognition and interest of teenagers with more new functions and new content.
All the data in this article comes from public data, and the data acquisition and analysis tools come from Marketing Cloud, a global social media data marketing management platform. For more overseas social media data of brands, please log in to Marketing Cloud to view.
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