Millennials consider social media as an important informational resource.

Brands might be interested in making sure their content marketing efforts reach younger audiences, especially when promoting products toward Millennials. Fortunately, consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 are constantly engaged, using social media frequently and accessing web content just as much.

PC Age Social ContentAccording to Nielsen’s “The Social Media Report,” Millennials manage their social media interactions through a variety of avenues, which allows them to remain connected at all times. Data shows that consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 spent approximately 11 hours accessing social media content through their PC computers in 2012. These same social consumers allocated about 10 hours to sites like Facebook and Twitter via mobile applications and the mobile web over the course of this year. Overall, Nielsen’s survey found that 76 percent of consumers using social media came away feeling positive about their interactions.

What’s more, a new study from Scarborough Research provides greater insight into the hyper-connected behaviors of Millennial consumers. For example, Millennials expect news and media to come to them, and they’re 53 percent more likely than other demographics to consider social networking websites as very important resources for finding information about news or current events. These internet users are also 56 percent more likely to engage with newspapers through mobile devices and listen to radio broadcast via the web. In fact, Millennials do just about everything on the web, and they share their behaviors on social sites, which lead others to respond and react in similar ways.

“It is essential to realize that Millennials have a natural orientation toward social media especially since they are a demographic who came of age during a time of rapid technology advancement,” said Deirdre McFarland, vice president of marketing and communications for Scarborough.

McFarland’s statement is important to note – she stresses that marketers must understand that Millennials consume media just like their parents, but they access it through new channels. A unique content marketing strategy must be developed specifically for Millennials, as multimedia outreach programs have greater odds of having impacts on these younger consumers than traditional campaigns or static text-only blogs. Millenials will only come of age, pushing old behaviors out of the fold and creating the need for new marketing tricks.

Brands that market products solely to Millennials need social media. Networks like Facebook and Twitter have become so integrated into the lives of these younger consumers that it’s hard to overlook published content, especially from companies that social users have chosen to follow themselves.

Ted Karczewski is an Executive Communications Associate at Brafton. He works to develop his own voice and apply his passions to the evolving world of SEO and content marketing, but he doesn't shy away from writing for fun. After graduating from Suffolk University, Ted used his Communications degree to test out Sports Journalism before Marketing at Brafton.