All the World's a Sumthing: Marketing to the College Aged through Social Networks, a Match?

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Marketing to the College Aged through Social Networks, a Match?

Research results regarding social media from Nielsen Norman Group suggest (strongly perhaps?) that university students - in fact - aren't exhibiting signs of social media obsession. The Media Post article suggests that students do not expect or want 'everything' to be social.
Amplify’d from www.mediapost.com
Report: Social Networks No Place For Marketing To College Crowd
On the same day Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year, a new report finds that college students don't necessarily live up to the stereotype of an especially tech-savvy, social media-obsessed segment of society.
When students want information about a company or organization, they turn to search engines to find their official Web pages, not social sites.
The report concludes, for instance, that marketers are misguided in assuming that social media is the best way to reach the college-age audience.
Among the main points:
Students like technology, but are not technical: Nielsen Norman found that while some are technology wizards, most expect the Web to be easy to use and to streamline their efforts without hassle.
Students move fast and miss information: They immediately flee a Web site when confronted with a page full of dense text, not even bothering to read the first sentence.
The latest Nielsen Norman report is reminiscent of a separate study by social media expert Danah Boyd earlier this year, which indicated that college students -- contrary to popular belief -- care about privacy online.
Read more at www.mediapost.com