Younger adults prefer companies with social media presence

A third of all younger adults in the U.S. prefer doing business with companies that maintain strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites, according to a survey released this week.

The “American Millennials” survey by Kansas based independent marketing agency, Barkley found that Millennials like checking out companies on social media websites before doing business with them.

The survey defines Mellinnials as those between ages 16-34.

“Since the Millennials are larger than the Baby Boomers and three times bigger than Generation X, marketers’ understanding of Millennials’ needs, tastes and behaviors will clearly shape current and future business decisions,” said Jeff Fromm, Barkley Senior Vice President and head of the survey group.

The survey found that though the older generation (35 and up) have become comfortable with social media and are likely to follow companies’ social media websites, the Millennials’ enthusiasm for making friends with brands outpace them.

The survey also found that the younger generation is more likely to click the “Like” button on Facebook or follow a business on Twitter, and do so often. Nearly a quarter (23.5%) of Millennials interacted with content from a company or brand’s Facebook page daily while only 17% of older adults did the same.

Other survey findings include that Millennials are exposed to and influenced by online media campaigns (40% versus 22%), online news (28% versus 22%) than older adults. Meanwhile non-Millennials prefer newspaper and direct mail.

Millennials watch less television than older adults. When they do, they prefer to watch live programming on their computer.

“Millennials appear to have substituted television and print media for the increased online activity and media consumption. Millennials watch significantly less TV than Non-Millennials; fewer Millennials report watching 20-plus hours/week (26 percent versus 49 percent). When they are not watching live TV, Millennials are much more likely to watch shows mainly on their laptops (42 percent versus 18 percent), with DVR (40 percent versus 36 percent), or On-Demand (26 percent versus 18 percent).”

“Perhaps because of their need to share and to find commonalities, 70 percent of Millennials reported feeling more excited when their friends agreed with them about where to shop, eat and play. Only 48 percent of older adults were as heavily influenced by their friends and colleagues. Additionally, Millennials gather information on products and services from more channels – more Millennials than Non-Millennials reported using a mobile device while shopping to research products (50 percent versus 21 percent).”