How Teenagers View Social Media

Teenagers don’t see social media through the same looking glass as adults do and yet they make up a huge part of the users. If your product or service targets teenagers you might want to know how they view social media so you can make the right social media marketing choices.

Facebook
If you thought teens loved Facebook, you’d be wrong. Most would agree that it was something they enjoyed in middle-grade school, but now they aren’t fond of it. Now that doesn’t mean they don’t use it, because in one teen’s words it would be as weird not to use it as it is to use it. After all, everyone is on Facebook. Teens use Facebook more for functionality like groups. They can quickly check their groups and be gone. They also tend to use Facebook Messenger and as a starting point to connect with friends and then they jump off to other apps like Instagram.

Instagram
When it comes to teens, Instagram is one of the most used social media apps. On Instagram, teens don’t have the same kind of pressure to follow someone that’s following them. They also don’t have to worry about liking something or commenting only having it show up in another person’s newsfeed. They love the content on Instagram and photos are way better. Also, adults have not flocked to Instagram and taken it over, which is mostly what happened on Facebook, so teens see it more as their hip app.

Twitter
It’s pretty common for teens to tell you they don’t understand the point of using Twitter. Of course, there’s a group at every school who are Twitter die-hards tweeting and retweeting constantly. There are three main types of Twitter users: The ones who tweet with the assumption that an employer prospect will eventually read what they are saying, the ones who use it to express themselves and complain, and the ones who look at others tweets but only post occasionally. It doesn’t do much for teens.

Snapchat
This is by far one of the fastest growing apps that teens are using. Snapchat is where teens feel they can be themselves. It’s an intimate network who don’t care that their friends see the real them. You don’t worry about comments or likes. The focus is creating the story of your day. After the photo is opened photos on Snapchat are automatically deleted, and that’s why teens love it.

Yik Yak
Yik Yak is newer and seems pretty popular with the college crowd. It focuses on the content of your posts—there are no profiles, followers, etc. and users say it’s addicting. Whatever is funny or relevant is at the top, and the rest is below. While it is not yet as popular as other networks, Yik Yak is undoubtedly a contender and users are going to grow.

Teens want different things from social media than adults do, so if you are marketing to teens, you need to keep this in mind.