The 10 things you need to know before you tell Gen Z anything
I spilled my tips to fancy news people... wanna see the slides?
Last week I spoke at INMA’s World Congress for News Media about creating content for Gen Z. Because it’s now entirely unacceptable to gatekeep I’m sharing my learnings with you too.
Sex and the City came out when I was at college so I’m not even close to being a member of Gen Z, which may make you wonder how I have the gall to talk about Zoomers. Well, before I started 🔥highly flammable🔥 I was Head of Editorial at Snapchat. In Q4 2020, over 90% of the U.S. Gen Z population watched content curated by my team so it was my actual full time job to understand what makes them tick. And yes, what you’ve heard is true, they are unlike previous generations.
1. GEN Z ARE BUILT DIFFERENT… BUT THEY ARE NOT HOMOGENEOUS
The oldest Gen Z members were born in 1997 which means that the vast majority of Zoomers have never experienced a world without the internet. By the time they were 7, Facebook had launched. They were 10 when the iPhone came out.
Gen Z have grown up and been socialized in a culture where every individual with access to the internet has had a place to create, post, share, like and subscribe.
They are social natives, and this has shaped them in a number of ways.
In the west, Gen Zers tend to be more politically liberal, less religious and less likely to think of themselves as exclusively heterosexual.
They tend to be inclusive and want to talk openly about social and cultural issues. They are prone to reject hierarchy and crave transparency. A McKinsey and Company study dubbed Zoomers as ‘True Gen’ because their core behaviours are “anchored in one element: this generation’s search for truth”.
But let’s not make a mistake by thinking this generation is one uniform group. Ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexuality, gender, life stage, religion and location are key and intersecting factors in their identity. One characteristic that we can comfortably generalise about though is their hyper connectivity to the internet.
2. CONTENT CONSUMPTION IS…
According to the Pew Research Center nearly half of 13 to 17 year olds in the U.S. said they were “almost constantly” online, while 97% said they use the internet daily.
3. GEN Z LIKE IT HERE
The most-used platform for American Gen Zers is YouTube, with 95% using it every day, followed by TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%).
TikTok’s chokehold on young people has led to major ramifications on Gen Z’s other favourite apps. Their video-first, discovery-based experience has been widely copied. So much so it’s now hard to distinguish between the top four Gen Z apps when you see them together like this…
4. THEY AIN’T GOT THE TIME… AND THERE’S AN ABUNDANCE OF CHOICE
As social natives, Gen Z have been conditioned to understand that there is always something else to watch, read or interact with. The feed never ends. If they aren’t engaged quickly they will move on.
During my time at Snapchat we would urge partners to focus on making the first three seconds of their content as captivating as possible. Since TikTok now dominates young people’s content diets, the engagement window for content creators has narrowed significantly. Attention must be grabbed from the very first second.
5. VISUAL AND BITE SIZED WINS… BUT GEN Z WILL STILL READ
In 2006, when the oldest members of Gen Z were 9, Facebook introduced the News Feed. Since then we’ve been trained to receive information in easily digestible short snippets. They were 13 when Instagram launched and that laid the foundation for the image being the whole message, then Snapchat came along and taught us all to communicate via pictures and videos. It’s no surprise then that visual, short form content is Gen Z’s preference. They grew up eating at the buffet table and they now overwhelmingly prefer to engage with content on feeds that offer multiple choices.
When it comes to news they rarely go to direct sources for their information first. The majority of discovery comes from feeds and notifications. Once their interest is piqued some studies show that they will delve deeper and look up direct sources. As a result text is still Gen Z’s preferred way to consume news. Last year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that the majority of 18 to 24 year olds mostly read news online. This maps to my experience at Snapchat, where even as a video-heavy destination they would see high engagement on text-based news content.
It’s also worth noting that although TikTok is a video platform, text, either in captions on video or in the comments section, has been a key part of its success.
6. PEOPLE >>> BRANDS
When it comes to social content Gen Z have an overwhelming bias towards individuals. As a result, personality-driven content is the dominant format on the top four platforms favoured by western Gen Zers.
Last year a qualitative study commissioned by the Reuters Institute quoted a 22-year-old British female about the individual over brand bias. She used two words in her answer that helps explain the preference - “comforting” and “intimate”.
The whole quote was: “A TV reporter who also has a TikTok page gives us regular updates on the situation. It feels comforting and more intimate than watching on TV news.”
“Gives us” is also revealing, as if the viewer believes the content was made for them.
The same study dug into how important tone was when it came to news delivery, with many expressing that they preferred the light and entertaining way social media creators discussed current events as opposed to the serious tone of mainstream media.
7. THEY QUESTION THE NEWS MEDIA’S AGENDA
The inclination towards individuals is also likely due to a large erosion in trust of news brands amongst Gen Z. An Ipsos MORI study showed that in 2008 87% of 12 to 15 year-olds believed that the news they saw on news websites was mostly or totally true. That study was repeated with Gen Z in 2018, and less than half agreed with the same statement. That’s a 44% drop in 10 years. Yikes!
These quotes from the qualitative study commissioned by the Reuters Institute give some insight into what has driven this.
Nic Newman - who authored the report - concluded that mainstream media are in a tricky, almost impossible, position. Gen Z views the mainstream news media as biased, part of the establishment and that they don’t have their interests at heart. Individuals however are not expected to be objective and Gen Z welcomes the opinions they bring.
8. THE NEWS VERSUS NEWS
Another way Gen Z distinguishes between the mainstream media and creators is in the stories that are covered. Gen Z sees two distinct types of information - The News and news.
The News is current affairs and politics. The sorts of stories that dominate the front page of a newspaper, are at the top of a homepage, or lead the evening news. Lower case n news is much broader and covers anything new and of interest.
The News is the Phillip Schofield scandal, the debt ceiling deal and the spring offensive in the Ukraine war. Lower case n news is the beige flag trend, Succession finale theories or the buzz around the new Future Renew range.
The News is produced by traditional news brands, whereas news comes from friends, creators, niche media organisations and even brands.
The News and news often cover the same stories but in very different ways. A good example of this is how mainstream media covered the Gwyneth Paltrow ski accident trial in a fairly straight way considering how bonkers the story was.
Creators, however, framed it purely for laughs and turned many aspects of the trial into memes.
Gen Z engage with both types of content but spend more time consuming lower case n news. And then there are those that choose to avoid The News entirely…
9. IGNORING THE NEWS IS COMMON
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that 38% of people across 46 of the world’s biggest markets said they actively avoided the news.
They cite a myriad of reasons including the repetitiveness of the news agenda, too much politics, a lack of trust, that it leads to arguments and makes them feel powerless.
While there isn’t data that looks at Gen Z specifically, around a third of those polled said that the news brings down their mood. This was a particularly common response from under 35s.
10. GEN Z WILL PAY FOR CONTENT… BUT THEY ARE RELUCTANT TO SPEND ON NEWS
Data from the U.K. lays this out pretty starkly. Looking at 18 to 24 year olds, 75% pay for TV, movie streaming services and music, 21% pay for audio books and podcasts but just 4% pay for a news subscription.
So Gen Z will pay for content… but news is pretty low on the list.
🐥The Great Chicken War of 2023🐥
The creativity demonstrated on TikTok thrills me every day but The Great Chicken War of 2023 is worthy of a special mention.
If you haven’t come across this yet, just know that chickens, chicken farmers and assembling chicken armies for an imaginary war are extremely hot right now.
This super cut of Chicken War stitches (where a TikToker reposts another user’s TikTok with their own response) shows just how the trend blew up.
The Great Chicken War also reminds me of what an incredible opportunity Snapchat had with Our Stories back in the day. **Disclaimer alert: Until 2021 I worked at Snapchat and still own shares in the company.** For a brief time Snapchat was able to tap into the strong desire that content creators have to respond to prompts and contribute to community-orientated stories. Snapchat’s first break out hit along these lines was a love story that developed on University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus story in 2016.
It’s also demonstrative of just how much Snapchat fumbled when it was slow to invest in tools for creators. When it comes to community content TikTok isn’t just eating their lunch, Snapchat threw away their own sandwiches.
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Very interesting insights on a well put together piece ....