Tag: Millenials

If you’re 50 or older, I’m sorry. You’re now past the point of even having a quarter-life crisis, or statistically even a mid-life crisis. A quarter-life crisis is something that happens around age 25 or so. And, if you think about it, that all makes sense.

When you’re in your early to mid-twenties, you’ve probably graduated from college and have some sort of a career. And, you’ve probably settled down, at least a wee bit, on the dating scene. Maybe you’re married. Maybe you’ve at least got a steady “main squeeze”. One thing you probably have a lot of is debt, both college debt and credit card debt. Career, relationships, and finances are the three pillars, if you will, of someone’s life in their twenties and thirties. And, managing all of these can, and quite frankly does, cause a lot of stress in a lot of people!

You might have thought of LinkedIn as a platform that’s more geared to older folks. And, in a way, that’s true. Only about fifteen percent of LinkedIn users are under 30. That’s not stopping LinkedIn from catering to that age group. This is a move that makes total sense. If you get hooked on LinkedIn early in your career lifetime, you’re more likely to stay involved with the platform, which leaves little room for competing business platforms to move in on LinkedIn’s market share.

One of the ways that LinkedIn has decided to cater to younger professionals is through their new feature Career Advice. According to LinkedIn themselves, Career Advice is “a new feature that helps connect members across the LinkedIn network with one another for lightweight mentorship opportunities.” You basically sign up for Career Advice right from your LinkedIn profile. When you do you can specify what type of advice you’re looking for.

This is a brilliant move on LinkedIn’s part! There are over half a billion professionals on LinkedIn. It’s as if the entire group of business professionals on planet Earth are available to you. With Career Advice, you can seek guidance from people who’ve been there and done that. If you haven’t taken advantage of this valuable resource, you might want to give it a go! (Note: It’s not just for youngsters, either!)

So, it’s LinkedIn we’re talking about, right? I bet you might guess that all the users are over forty, mid-level execs, college educated—that sort of thing, right? And, if you sell products, run a business, or otherwise want to cater to a younger crowd, well you probably should go to either Instagram or Twitter. And, if you were to think such a thing…you’d be somewhat right and somewhat wrong.

Okay, you’re mainly right. But probably not in the percentages you think. Here’s a startling fact put out by Hootsuite. One quarter of LinkedIn users are ages 18 to 29. Under thirty! One quarter. One in four users are essentially millennials! Who knew, right?

Let’s say that you do run that company, or at least work for it, that caters to a younger crowd. One quarter of the half a billion users on LinkedIn are, as far as age is concerned, right in your target market. As, being that they’re on LinkedIn, they’re relatively easy to find, connect with, and message. One quarter of five hundred million (half a billion) is 125 million. That’s a lot of people under the ages of 30. Not only that, but if they’re on LinkedIn, they probably either have jobs or are at least looking for them. They’re serious about their careers. They might be exactly who you’re looking for. The only question now is how do you market to them on LinkedIn?

Well, to figure this out, let’s take a look at platforms that specifically cater to this group. How about Instagram? According to SmartInsights, about 60% of Instagram users are under thirty. So, how are businesses marketing on Instagram? It’s more than just showing pictures. Here are a few things that I see on Instagram that could easily translate to LinkedIn.

Idea #1: Make your marketing more “fun”

Idea #2: Break the rules, at least the ones that won’t get you put in LinkedIn “jail”

Idea #3: Cross promote to other platforms like YouTube and Instagram, drawing visitors back to LinkedIn