“That sparked an idea,” Flint said. “How is Gen Z faring as the first cohort to start their career in a hybrid or remote workforce?”

That story and others inspired by Gen Z soon ballooned into a 70-page issue of Innovation dedicated to “Generation Rising.” HP’s magazine, released for summer 2021 in both digital and print format, also coincided with the launch of a new film series on Gen Z—”Generation Impact“—the brand produced.

We sat down with Flint to chat about Innovation, the impetus behind HP’s Gen Z-focused marketing efforts, and the creative process that goes into bringing these ambitious content projects to life.

Why Gen Z?

As the first truly digitally native generation, Gen Z is attractive to technology companies—both as employees and customers. Experts predict that by 2023, Gen Z will be the biggest generational cohort in the economy. Paying attention to this group’s preferences and media patterns, including how they consume content, is no longer optional.

In response, brands like HP are getting creative with the ways in which they talk to this up-and-coming demographic. Publications like Innovation and The Garage fulfill dual purposes: They inform internal employees about company updates, and they entertain customers loyal to the brand.

Issue releases also tend to coincide with the HP’s larger objectives and tentpole calendar events. Last fall, for example, the company created an issue of Innovation focused on environmental initiatives in order to align with its annual sustainability report.

With “Generation Rising,” HP wanted to showcase how young people are using technology for social good while teasing their “Generation Impact” film series. The first installment of that series, a short film called The Coder, which features a young woman’s efforts to start a coding school for Black students, debuted in June 2021. The digital magazine came out the same month, and the print version was released in July.

The omnichannel tactic is smart, considering Gen Z’s tendency to prioritize video and other visual content over more traditional forms of marketing. The Innovation issue takes these preferences into account too. Beyond longform articles, the magazine features lively, colorful illustrations; infographics; and the digital version even has an animated cover.

Bringing Innovation to life

Bringing this latest issue of Innovation to life took about four months. The magazine comes out three times a year, so there’s a good deal of lead time before each release. It’s hosted on the interactive publishing platform Joomag, and readers can sign up for a digital subscription online.

When working on a new issue, Flint’s team brainstorms story ideas, writes the pieces, and designs copy, illustrations, animations, and more. Since the vast majority of the Innovation team comes from a background in publishing—mostly magazines—they’re well-versed in the mechanics of such a multifaceted project.

When necessary, HP also taps freelance talent. “We are a small and mighty team in-house, but you need lots of talent to make a magazine,” Flint said. “We use freelance writers, photographers, illustrators, editors, copy editors, art directors, and producers.”

Of course, the pandemic threw a new wrench in the process—Flint and the rest of HP’s brand journalism team had to adapt to working 100% remotely. Though it was an adjustment, Flint said that it hasn’t hindered their creativity. The team uses platforms like Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Dropbox, Adobe InDesign, and InCopy to toss around ideas, read proofs, and more.

“I think there is always going to be a place for magazines… it just might not be on the newsstand.”

“Regarding remote collaboration… It’s happening. It’s working. We’re doing it,” Flint said. “Are there days when it would be easier if we were all together under one roof? Sure. But overall, I think we’re doing great work.”

Gen Z was a “rich topic” when HP sat down to brainstorm story concepts. The issue includes stories ranging from Gen Z in the workplace—a piece on internships and another on the “new commute” for remote workers—to short profiles of 15 young people making a social impact via various tech platforms. Each subject has a connection to the brand: some through direct partnerships, and others through non-governmental organizations that work with HP.

“Many of them are based on consumer insights that have been floating around,” Flint said. “For the Gen Z issue, nobody presented us with hard-and-fast facts or data points. We just understand that this is an upcoming priority.”

But, Flint noted, HP’s ongoing investment into digital content, distribution, and social promotion will soon give them more information to work with. “We’re hoping to start getting some of that data to be able to see what performs well, where people are coming from, where stories land, etc.,” she said.

Reaching Gen Z and the future of magazines

HP isn’t the only technology company focusing its content marketing on Gen Z.

Since data suggests that this generation is particularly invested in sustainability and social impact, brands like Samsung and Dell are increasingly experimenting with inspirational storytelling, charitable initiatives, and inclusive messaging. To align with Gen Z’s content preferences, many legacy brands are turning to popular formats like shortform videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels, as well as smaller and more intimate “digital campfires” on emerging platforms like Fortnite, Discord, and Twitch.

Flint believes old-school magazines still have significant value—even for this digitally native generation. (Innovation is released both online and via a small print run of about 700 copies. Flint hopes to expand that number as more people return to the office, where Innovation is typically distributed.)

“I think magazines still resonate with younger generations because there’s just more richness and depth to this type of content,” she said. “It’s packaged in a way that’s very different from the [newsfeed].”

There’s something permanent and trustworthy about a tangible magazine—the physicality of it makes it less ephemeral than the snippets younger generations have grown accustomed to scrolling by on social media. Some reports have even found that consumers trust magazines more than other sources of news, including television and radio.

In the context of content marketing, HP hopes that the familiar format—including the authoritative executive letter in the front, the in-depth reporting and fact-checking, and the engaging mix of imagery and copy—is an effective way to reach both internal employees and potential customers affiliated with Gen Z.

“There’s power to the printed form. There’s power to a front of the book that has your executives’ voices in it,” she said. “I think there is always going to be a place for magazines… it just might not be on the newsstand.”

The post Getting Gen Z: Inside HP’s Colorful & Creative Innovation Magazine appeared first on Contently.

However, as the industry emerges from infancy, cannabis brands still face big challenges when it comes to marketing and promotion. The field differs from other heavily regulated sectors like cigarettes and alcohol. Over the last decade, cannabis marketers have been handcuffed by content censorship and inconsistent standards online. Social media platforms can kick off cannabis brands without warning, even if they adhere to established guidelines. As a result, these marketers have had to get creative (and in some cases, cross their fingers while hoping for the best.)

To learn more about these challenges, I reached out to Thomas Winstanley, VP of marketing at Theory Wellness, a small batch marijuana company with recreational and medical cannabis dispensary locations in Massachusetts and Maine. Notably, Theory Wellness was the first licensed recreational outdoor cultivation on the east coast.

As new brands look to navigate the cannabis industry, I asked Winstanley about which platforms perform best, where he finds creative inspiration, and how marketing could evolve as more states legalize marijuana.

What kind of cannabis content tends to perform best?

There are some bread-and-butter posts that definitely will just always perform well. If you show a lot of cured cannabis, that’s going to do well. People just love to see it.

But then we surprise ourselves sometimes. We actually had a social review this morning, and we were looking at some old content. One was a shot of a tin of pre-rolls that had over 500 likes. That’s kind of interesting. A really good product flatly did really well. But sometimes we think that something’s going to hit, and it doesn’t.

Are there certain platforms that tend to perform better than others?

I don’t want to name names, but we have lost some pretty significant CRM platforms that had been driving our business because one way or another, they discover we’re a cannabis brand.

Even though we’re legally running an operation that is adhering to all state policies at a state level, at a federal level, we can be a liability. So we’ve seen and we’ve felt the adverse implications of that when a platform says, “Hey, you know what? We don’t want to support your business. We support what you guys are doing, but we don’t want you on our platform.” So it’s really tricky.

For our intent, LinkedIn is definitely the best social network. They don’t seem to care all that much. Twitter is definitely not as ferocious as Facebook and Instagram. We see a lot of competitors go down on Facebook and Instagram, and that’s surely by virtue of regulatory policy. So there are definitely platforms that will work with us, and there are ones that will not.

A lot of it comes down to how Instagram is feeling about us that day. Because there have been a lot of things around shadow bans where if Instagram feels you’re telling a lie, they may start to bury you a little bit. You may not get as much exposure. For the most part, we know how we want the brand to look. We know how we want the brand to feel, and we operate within that space.

Are there other industries that you specifically look to and take inspiration from?

It’s really hard to look at any other industries and use it as a comparison. My experience as a marketer has been in the pharmaceutical industry, I’ve worked in spirits, I’ve worked in consumer packaged goods. And honestly, I think I’ve drawn a little bit from each of those kinds of verticals when it comes to professional companies and seeing how they’ve operated.

In the spirits world, you can go to a case study and you can look at, “Okay, why were certain types of cognacs really hot in the 2000s?” Great, somebody’s already done that. I can’t go and be like, “Okay, why was purple haze so hot in the ’80s?” Nobody has a case study that’s like, “Here’s who was smoking cannabis in 1980, and this is why they were enjoying purple haze.”

What about other brands?

We try to be tastemakers. We are a young company, and we look to companies that we just like. What I would say is probably different from what our CEO would say, which would be different from what our CFO would say, but I look at brands like Warby Parker … I’m wearing their glasses. They have the best customer service that I’ve ever seen. I think their entire experience is great.

I also look at cool sub-music labels like Ghostly International. They are a very cool record producing label, but they also have this wonderful offshoot of very cool apparel and music listening accessories, and they’re a lot more than just a music brand.

We don’t know that there’s a ton of analogies for what we do and what this industry is becoming and where it’s going, but we just try to do the cool things that we’re seeing other brands do. And if they’re doing it, we could probably figure out a way to do something similar. Let’s try to find those threads of tastemaking that we can then introduce to our brand.

Fifty-four percent of Gen X cannabis users feel overlooked by brands and marketers. How do you reach these Gen X consumers when online ads seem to focus more on Gen Z and millennials?

I can understand why consumers are like, “Yeah, my cannabis brand doesn’t understand me.” Part of the reason is because we’re not allowed to understand you, because we don’t keep your data. This is a huge point of differentiation. Every night, all of the sales transaction data is purged on the recreational side. I’m not keeping Thomas Winstanley’s record of how many recreational cannabis purchases he’s bought across our stores.

So instead of having this massive database where I can sort through and try to figure out what the UX was to get someone from the landing page all the way to our retail store, it becomes really difficult. This is the nature of the cannabis industry today—we’re more evolved in a lot of ways, but we’re also less evolved in terms of what we’re able to do and our capabilities.

But we still seem to find a way. Our retention rates are really high. So we know that we’re doing something right. I’m less focused about the lifespan of Thomas Winstanley who comes and shops with us. I just want to make sure if Thomas Winstanley has an issue and he wants to address that issue with us as a company, that he’s going to get that issue resolved quickly and he’s going to have someone on the other end on the phone when he calls here.

How do you think the marketing tactics are going to evolve as more states legalize marijuana?

We’re seeing some incremental steps towards progress [on the legal end]. That can be everything from e-commerce companies like Shopify or WooCommerce toeing in the water in Canada before coming to the U.S. and saying, “We’re going to allow this.” We’re seeing small numbers of banks start to work with cannabis companies.

I think from our end, we are still working. We ran our first digital campaign about a year ago now, and it was not a good one. It just didn’t do as well as we had hoped, because we were working with a team that wasn’t as experienced with digital marketing. It was kind of like, “Let’s try this and see if anybody says anything.”

You don’t need to be Nostradamus to know what’s going to happen in cannabis in a year or two.

Fast forward to now, we’re working with a really top-notch demand-side platform that’s working on a big campaign for us across the northeast that’s going live shortly. So where I started from almost three years ago to where we are today, that box is definitely opening. But it’s still not like I can put a pixel in our browser and throw up some Instagram ads and Facebook ads, and try to build some conversions off of that.

You don’t need to be Nostradamus to know what’s going to happen in cannabis in a year or two. So what we’re trying to do is build the structures and systems in place to prepare for that inevitability of what marketing becomes in the space.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The post How Cannabis Marketing Is Growing From The Ground Up appeared first on Contently.

That’s right. After a decade killing chain restaurants, marriage, and the McDonald’s McWrap, millennials have grown strong and are entering their peak earning years. Simultaneously, Gen Z—which you may know from the popular mobile application, TikTok—is graduating college and taking over the coveted 18-25 consumer segment.

I’m a card-carrying millennial. I’ve survived graduating into a recession and strangled an Applebees with my own two hands. And you know what my generation wants? To buy stuff from companies that reflect our values, so we can feel good about ourselves when we pop a CBD gummy and start clicking on Instagram ads.

The age of conscious consumerism is here, driven by the under 40-set. According to 5Ws 2020 Consumer Culture Report, 83 percent of millennials say that it’s important for the companies they buy from to align with their beliefs and values, and 76 percent of 18-34 year-olds like when the CEOs of companies they buy from speak out on issues they care for.

Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer also found that values are driving purchase decisions. The most important attributes to consumers today being able to trust that what the brand does is right, reputation, values, and environmental impact. As climate change worsens, sustainability is only going to become more important; turns out, we really want a planet to live on.

Companies today not only need to do good; they also need to tell stories about the good that they’re doing so consumers know about it. It’s not a nice-to-have anymore; it’s a necessity.

That’s why social impact storytelling was one of the top content trends I presented in our State of Content Marketing 2021 trends webinar (which you can get on-demand here.)

One of the coolest things is that telling these stories will not only help your company’s bottom line—it’ll help the world, too.

That’s because when you tell great stories about the good your company is doing, it creates a positive feedback loop that encourages your company to invest more in CSR efforts.

Skeptical? Then say it to the face of this awesome diagram.

Social impact storytelling needs to be a part of your content strategy in 2021. And in the webinar, I suggested taking three steps:

1. Put on your reporter’s hat to find compelling social impact stories

Companies don’t often do a great job of talking about the good that they’re doing—even to their own employees. That means that you need do the dirty work to find them.

This is something that GE Reports does extremely well. Led by chief storyteller Tomas Kellner—a former editor at Forbes—GE Reports has amassed a loyal audience of over 100,000 subscribers through what Kellner calls “shoe leather reporting“—developing sources inside the company to break stories of the amazing innovations happening inside the company.

While its sustainability storytelling has often gone viral on Reddit, GE Reports shifted focus in the spring to cover how GE Healthcare—and the rest of the world-was fighting back against COVID-19.

GE Reports did a remarkable job telling the stories of employees who were going above-and-beyond in the fight against COVID, and the role GE Healthcare was playing in combatting the pandemic. Just check out this story about GE Healthcare employee who traveled 1,400 miles through an earthquake and blizzard to help step up the production of ventilators at a key plant, or this story about a breakthrough in AI-enhanced ultrasound that was saving lives during the darkest days of the outbreak in Italy.

They also published a weekly roundup of five ways the world fought back, which included non-GE stories, and was my daily dose of optimism as I hunkered down in downtown Manhattan, clutching a bottle of hand sanitizer like it was the last Infinity Stone.

GE Reports’ coverage not only made me feel better—it helped me see GE Healthcare in a new, extremely positive light. If I was in the market for an MRI machine, I would definitely buy it from them!

You can follow Kellner’s lead, especially if you work inside a large corporation. Find out who’s in charge of your social impact and CSR initiatives, and who else is working on them. Bond with them. Interview them. Do the same thing with your product and engineering teams—your company’s product might be doing good and serving people in ways you don’t even know about. Put on your reporter hat, and get to work.

2. Tell narrative stories that communicate your company’s values and how they set you apart from the competition

The morning after the 2016 election, Rose Marcario, the CEO of Patagonia, woke up at 4 AM and decided that it was time to double down on the company’s activism.

As Fast Company reported, by 9:30 AM, she had penned a company-wide call-to-action to “defend wilderness, to defend air, soil, and water.” Facing widespread rollback of environmental regulations, she galvanized the company around its mission to protect the planet—a mission dear to not only employees at the company, but Patagonia’s customers, too.

Ever since Marcario took over as Patagonia’s CEO in 2008 and made a huge bet on sustainable manufacturing and design, the company’s revenue has grown more than 500 percent.

Much of that is its mission-led marketing; the outdoor apparel brand donates 1 percent of all profits to environmental causes, turns its stores into a repair shop for used gear on Black Friday, and tells stories about sustainability in Hollywood-quality films and four-word rallying cries on its clothing. Patagonia’s ethics and values are the competitive differentiator that shines through in every story they tell, and their customers are fiercely loyal to the brand as a result.

A big reason that Patagonia’s approach works so well is the ridiculous quality of their storytelling. One of their latest documentaries, Public Trust, about the battle to save public land from development, won awards at the Big Sky Documentary Festival and Mountainview.

They tailor their content to the channels where their audience spends their time—short films on YouTube, compelling 30-second sizzle trailers on Instagram, climate news and calls-to-action on Twitter—and truly stand apart, growing their business at an exponential rate.

3. When possible, align your social impact storytelling with a product

In recent years, Bank of the West has been doubling down on ethical and sustainable investing through its Impact Solutions investment arm. In 2019, it became the first bank to empower customers to track the CO2 impact of their purchases, and this year, launched its 1% for the Planet account to donate 1 percent of revenues to environmental non-profits.

They tell the story of their sustainability initiatives through Means & Matters, its sustainability-focused content hub. The site covers everything from how the private sector can step in where the public sector has failed to how to work in sustainability. It even puts other banks that invest in arctic drilling on blast.

(Disclosure: Bank of the West is Contently client, and partnered with Contently on Means & Matters.)

This content communicates a clear reason why people like me who care about the planet should invest with Bank of the West over competitors. There’s also an added bonus, as all of this sustainable investing content is an SEO goldmine, helping attract potential buyers who would be extremely interested in investing with Bank of the West—making it much easier to tie the content to business results.

This all, of course, leaves one very important question: What if your company isn’t investing in any initiatives worthy of social impact storytelling?

Well, then hit your leadership team with the stats and examples in this post, and make the case why it’s just good business to stand for something and do good in the world. And once they do, tell the story of how you made it happen. I can’t wait to see it.

The post Why Social Impact Storytelling Will Be 2021’s Hottest Content Trend appeared first on Contently.

If a writer even introduced the concept of rain or mist or even splash-back from some rapids, there would be hell to pay. Danger, too, was totally out of the question. Anything that even hinted as a bad time was a no-go.

Unsurprisingly, the project was a disaster. The editing process was excruciating, and every half-decent writer quit after one story. Actually, the stories weren’t really stories. Without tension, they were just milquetoast diary entries, so readers never returned. The lower-level managers running the day-to-day of the program knew it was insane, but their hands were tied. Their bosses shrugged off the failure by blaming an entire industry. “Content marketing just doesn’t work,” they said.

I’ve worked at Contently, one of the pioneers in content marketing, since 2013. I’d love to sit here and tell you that the industry has seen smooth sailing, but that’d be a lie. The truth is a lot of companies have figured out content marketing and turned it into their secret weapon, driving hockey-stick growth and leaving their competitors lingering in the shadows. But even more companies have struggled to get their programs off the ground and dismissed great content as “just too hard.”

As Contently’s head of content strategy, I spend most of my time as a content therapist, traveling around the country to help prospects and clients work through their biggest marketing challenges. After hundreds of meetings and workshops this year, I feel confident that content marketing is about to take a big leap—thanks to a few key factors.

1. Creativity strikes back

Back in 2013, brands started hiring journalists to work on their content programs. Many of those folks found themselves totally alone, surrounded by people who had no idea how to develop good editorial content. Basically, they were this guy:

Some of those journalists quit and went back to their old world. But a lot of them stuck it out. They painfully got buy-in across their org and learned about the business side of marketing. Slowly, they brought on other smart people with great storytelling skills to join them in the fight. Now, five years later, they’re ascending to powerful leadership positions.

The epitome of this person is my friend Margaret Magnarelli. She’s the former editor of Money magazine and now the VP of marketing at Monster.com. Millions of people read Monster’s content each month. The brand has won or been nominated for just about every content marketing award on the planet. And content is a big driver of business. But it didn’t come without a ton of hustle.

“The first thing I did was go around to every person I thought could possibly touch content in any way and say, ‘What do you think I should do, and how can I help you do your job?'” she told me. “That really helped me understand a lot of things that I didn’t understand coming from journalism—how I could work with these people and if I could align my KPIs with their KPIs.”

As she’s proven the business value of her program, her team has steadily grown, and she’s brought in some great editorial minds. (Her B2C content manager, for instance, is the former editorial director of Conde Nast Traveler.)

Pictured above: Margaret Magnarelli, VP of Marketing at Monster, who will hate me for this.

There’s good reason to be optimistic about the future of content marketing because more people with the special combination of storytelling skills and business savvy like Margaret are now in charge of major marketing programs. And they’re investing in great content.

2. The brand purpose craze

If you’re looking for a buzzword of the year—let’s just assume you are—it’s “brand purpose.” I even made a trophy in Clipart.

Pictured above: My design skills, once again proving that I am a true triple threat.

Brand purpose has been percolating in the most inner circles of marketing buzzspeak for years now, but in 2018, it really took over. The big driver was a group of studies that showed brand purpose was a business imperative, particularly if you want to reach Gen Z, those pesky youngsters who grew up with iPhones for hands and YouTube for parents.

The stat that really gets everyone going is 67 percent of Gen Z would stop purchasing from a brand that doesn’t align with its values. (A separate Edelman study found that number at 57 percent, across age groups.) This left brands scrambling to figure out their purpose—which really shouldn’t have been such a mystery in the first place.

Just look at GE Reports, which has built a dedicated newsletter of over 100,000 people and regularly goes viral on Reddit by covering the company’s amazing new inventions and initiatives across renewable energy and air travel. Or look at Hubspot, which has built a dedicated following by helping millions of people master inbound marketing and grow their businesses.

Whatever your mission or purpose, remember that content is the best way to show people what your brand really cares about.

3. The content center of excellence

This year, I’ve seen enterprise brands started to come to grips with the harsh reality that they have dozens of departments and LOBs creating content in silos, with little brand governance and quality control. In many cases, groups are undermining each other, creating contradictory or repetitive content. It’s chaos.

The good news: A lot of these brands have had a come-to-Jesus moment. To avoid the chaos, they created centralized teams or content councils for all parts of the org. Often, these councils are led by the star team that’s already figured out content for an individual line of business. As a reward, they get to go through the painful process of spreading their expertise to the rest of the business, setting clear content strategies, measurement frameworks, and processes for creating content. Yay!

This process is painful, but it also:

a) is a big sign that brands are taking content marketing seriously

b) will ensure that content performance is mapped to real business outcomes, which will only help it grow in performance.

This is so significant. Honestly, content marketing shouldn’t be its own discipline. We’ve reached a stage where brands need great content at every buyer touchpoint—from their Instagram posts to sales enablement emails to pitch decks—to win people over. Great content is an inherent part of good marketing. And in 2019, we’re going to see that become true. It’s been a messy adventure, but who cares if we got a little wet?

The post State of Content Marketing 2019: Creativity Strikes Back appeared first on Contently.

While it seems like Americans have become more open-minded on race and gender over time, it’s clear that not everyone likes to see different types of people in commercials. However, a new study suggests that the younger you are, the more receptive you’ll be to diversity in ads.

According to a September 2016 survey by Barkley and Futurecast, more than two-thirds of U.S. internet users like ads that show “real people,” not just gender stereotypes from the past. While 60 percent of Gen Z believes progressive gender norms make it easier for people to be themselves, only 52 percent of the baby boomer population feels the same way. And the majority of boomers do not like seeing ads that show diverse types of families.

This demographic split goes beyond just advertising. A July 2016 Harris Poll found that 68 percent of millennials said they prefer watching movies and TV shows with multicultural casts, and 65 percent would shop more at a retailer offering a wide selection of multicultural products. Those figures dipped to 44 and 32 percent, respectively, for respondents at least 65 years old.

“We’re seeing a more diverse and open society, especially among millennials,” Quim Gil, head brand planner at ad agency Richards/Lerma, said in an interview with eMarketer. “We know that these new, modern consumers share an endless curiosity and openness to new cultures, no matter what their skin color. They want to learn new languages and hear different opinions—they don’t want to be siloed.”

Accepting cultural differences has somehow become a polarizing topic. But as younger generations demonstrate, marketers should not view it as an optional ad tactic. Instead, they should be excited to celebrate diversity as something fundamentally American.

The post Less Than Half of Baby Boomers Like Seeing Diversity in Ads appeared first on Contently.

An executive at a major pharmaceutical company recently asked this question of Amanda Gutterman, VP of growth at digital media company Dose, which operates Dose.com and OMG Facts. The executive wanted to make sure his brand would appeal to teenagers, not only with an eye toward future sales, but also in order to attract top young talent.

Gutterman’s response? Be real. “Gen Z isn’t anti-corporate or anti-brand,” she said. “They just have an amazing nose for B.S.”

The pharmaceutical executive, who preferred to go unnamed, is hardly alone in his concern.

Based on new research, Goldman Sachs recently stated that “Gen Z matters more than Millennials.” These digital natives—generally classified as consumers born between 1998 and 2008—now represent 22 percent of the U.S. population, putting them right behind millennials (23 percent) and ahead of Gen X (21 percent). By 2020, they’ll make up a staggering 40 percent of all consumers.

How can brands relate to the first generation of kids who learned to swipe before they could walk? Here’s what you need to know about Gen Z to speak to them as a brand, create content that’s relevant to their lives, and steer clear of the B.S.

1. 63 percent of Gen Z want marketing from ‘real’ people

A survey conducted last year by digital agency Deep Focus found that 63 percent of Gen Z prefers to see “real” people in ads, while just 37 percent favor celebrities. And close to 70 percent are more interested in content with a “realistic ending” rather than a polished but unlikely narrative.

Swift, a creative agency based in Portland, calls Gen Z “walking ad blockers primed to avoid content that is not a trusted connection.” Winning them over matters, though, because 93 percent of parents say their Gen Z kids influence family spending decisions and household purchases.

“You don’t want to come onto a platform like Snapchat and be perceived as someone’s weird uncle trying to be cool—’Hey kids, I’m one of you, let’s play,'” Gutterman said. “That’s a trap social media managers fall into. When brands pander to this generation, that’s when they lose.”

“You don’t want to come onto a platform like Snapchat and be perceived as someone’s weird uncle trying to be cool.”

One way to avoid this is to enlist the help of social influencers, effectively putting a buffer between the marketing message and the brand.

“This generation is more likely to line up around the block at Vidcon [the annual online video conference] than stand outside a TV show taping,” said Alexa Tonner, co-founder and EVP of San Francisco-based social influencer agency Collectively.

After all, being a social influencer and being part of Gen Z is often one and the same. Gen Z is more likely than other generations to be “social creators” themselves; recent research shows about one-third of U.S. social media users between 16 and 34 are social influencers, meaning they either have a sizable following online or actively partner with brands.

2. Facebook is their most important social network

If you were asked to name the platform that occupies the most of Gen Z’s time, you might guess Snapchat. You almost certainly wouldn’t guess Facebook, which has a reputation for attracting older folks more than teens. But while Snapchat is the most-used platform for 51 percent of Gen Z, all the talk about teens and tweens shunning Facebook is largely a myth.

“Facebook is constantly innovating and bringing users all kinds of new reasons to use it.”

According to marketing agency Fluent, 67 percent of older Gen Zers regularly use Facebook, while 50 percent name the Facebook-owned Instagram—only one percentage point behind Snapchat. Facebook was also named by 26 percent of respondents as the social network they use “constantly,” compared with 23 percent for Snapchat. Nearly half of respondents said they log onto Facebook multiple times a day.

“The teens we surveyed directly actually classify Facebook as the most important social channel because it’s such a comprehensive directory of people and brands,” said Rick Albano, executive creative director at Swift. “For them, it’s like the modern-day phonebook. There’s a ton of information they don’t pay attention to—until they need it.”

Albano added that the social site’s ongoing efforts to enhance its user experience meet Gen Z’s evolving interests and needs. Over the past year, Facebook has launched customer support and content chatbots, acquired face-swapping app MSQRD, and introduced live-streaming video product Facebook Live.

“Facebook is constantly innovating and bringing users all kinds of new reasons to use it,” Albano said.

Ferrara Candy Company, which markets candy brands like Trolli that count both Gen Z and millennials among their target consumers, sees “significantly higher engagement rates” with Instagram and Snapchat, has success with Facebook’s paid promotion, and also has its sights set on Facebook Live.

“The new Facebook Live feature is something we will be leveraging in the near future to drive engagement with our Gen Z fans,” Jill Manchester, Ferrara Candy’s SVP of marketing and brand strategy, told me.

3. Gen Z wants to participate

Don’t expect Gen Z to simply sit back and watch, on Facebook or anywhere else. Based on a global study, PR and communications agency Zeno Group believes companies must give Gen Z “a job to do” and “let them be brand advocates.” Interactivity and content collaboration, therefore, are key content principles.

Collectively—which works with brands like Old Navy, Gap Factory, Zappos, and Pandora—stresses that while Gen Z is inclined to participate in the brand experience, they’ll only do it when they respect the brand. Alexa Tonner advises companies to make sure their content accurately reflects their brand image and voice, be it through humor or emotional subject matter, to ensure it doesn’t come off as forced.

“Be empowering,” she said, “not overbearing.”

With that in mind, Collectively recently helped internet radio company Pandora promote its new Thumbprint Radio feature with user-generated content.

“The campaign was all about capturing that #nofilter reaction when your favorite jam comes on, and our collaborators did just that with humor and amazing dance moves,” Collectively wrote in a case study about the campaign. In other words, it used regular people, and asked them to join in on the fun.

4. 79 percent of Gen Z is interested in VR

Gen Z loves digital video on platforms like YouTube and Facebook, to the point they’re now watching considerably more internet video than TV. The next technology to consume them, however, will be virtual reality.

According to a study conducted by Greenlight VR and online research firm Touchstone Research, 79 percent of U.S. internet users 10 to 18 are interested in VR—six percentage points more than millennials.

“It’s the ultimate empathy machine,” Gutterman said. “It does more than just entertain, it deeply educates and inspires people on an emotional level in a way that less sensory communication methods can’t.”

At the moment, the VR market is still ramping up. Oculus Rift—the flagship VR headset from Facebook-owned Oculus—was only released in March of this year, while the HTC Vive came out in April. Samsung’s Gear VR has been available since November, but Sony’s PlayStation VR won’t launch until this October, and we’re still waiting for Microsoft HoloLens, which promises augmented reality.

Still, by this past January, Google had shipped upwards of 5 million units of its inexpensive Google Cardboard headset to help build the hype. Brands that routinely target Gen Z, like Gillette and McDonald’s, are investing in VR experiences already, but another course of action for companies is to offer branded Google Cardboard headsets along with their custom VR experience. Touchstone Research and Greenlight VR’s findings show that, so far, consumers are responding favorably to this approach.

5. You have 8 seconds to engage them

It’s been said that Gen Z has “highly evolved eight-second filters” for content. But that doesn’t mean they can’t, or won’t, pay attention to worthwhile content. Collectively’s Tonner points out that this is the same generation known for watching hours of live video-game streams and 20-minute YouTube beauty tutorials through to the end.

“A lot of people are making really beautiful things deserving of that attention,” Gutterman explained. “That’s why they’re flipping. These are people with different expectations.”

Swift attempts to reach them by creating branded emojis for companies like Starbucks and an animated GIF keyboard for Hot Pockets.

Ferrara Candy produces GIF content for Twitter and Tumblr, but went with slightly longer, 60-second spots in a recent 1980s-inspired video series featuring NBA star James Harden and Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers. The videos generated more than 1.3 million views across all platforms and more than 1,500 shares on Facebook alone.

“Gen Z can tend to tune out if you don’t catch their attention immediately,” Manchester said. “We have this in mind every time we’re creating content for share-ability.”

But while animated GIFs and video can help brands grab their attention fast, they’re not necessarily enough to keep them watching.

“They are drawn to voices and personalities they identify with or aspire to,” Tonner said. “Brands that embrace that kind of voice are doing really well.”

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