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Connecting with the Net Generation community
By David L. Rawle
The numbers are staggering. MySpace now has more than 200 million members. New members are signing up at the rate of 2 million a week. It’s the third most popular Web site in this country. Some weeks, it’s No. 1. MySpace was founded just four years ago.
And there’s Wikipedia, with more than 4 million articles in more than 200 languages. Recent independent analyses rated Wikipedia as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. More importantly, when errors are spotted in Wikipedia, they can be corrected instantly, unlike the Brittanica, which has to wait until the next edition.
What MySpace and Wikipedia—along with Facebook, Flickr, Epinions, craigslist and others—have in common is that they are much more than Web sites. They are communities.
These communities are populated primarily by what is being called the Net Generation. As marketers, we need to understand this generation and its culture. In many respects, it’s a new world out there. And I think it may even be a better one.
The Net Generation wants freedom…freedom of choice and freedom of mobility.
Henry Ford declared that customers could have whatever color car they wanted, as long as it was black. Today’s most successful automobile company, Toyota, recognizes the importance of choice. For instance, Toyota’s Tundra pickups come in a staggering number of choices of cab, bed size, engine size, rear-wheel or four-wheel drive, and several different trim levels.
That’s freedom of choice. Freedom of mobility is equally important. That’s why Skype is probably the favored communications medium for the Net Generation. Skype’s slogan,
“What you need, when you need it,” says it all. Skype offers simple, one low-price communications from anywhere to anywhere, worldwide.
The Net Generation wants customization. There’s nothing cookie-cutter about this crowd—they are distinct individuals with a wide variety of interests. And, thanks to cyberspace communities, they can always find others who share their interests.
Our challenge as marketers is to make it possible for them to have our product or service their way. We need to allow and enable them to customize what we have to fit their very specific needs. Fortunately, new technology makes it a lot easier to do that.
The Net Generation has a healthy passion for research, getting the facts, asking others their opinions, exploring alternatives.
You’re going to have to give them more information, take more time on the sale, develop a relationship.
The Net Generation has good values and is well informed. I recently heard someone deride
the fact that young people get their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert aren’t funny unless you already know the news. Don’t kid yourself. The Net Generation is smart, thoughtful and thorough.
Think about it. They’re putting a lot of stuff about themselves right out there in sites like Facebook and MySpace. They are willing to be vulnerable. And they are, to wackos, predators, etc. But that also makes them vigilant to creeps in cyberspace and to the integrity of marketing messages.
Bottom line: Stay true, transparent and authentic.
The Net Generation is really into collaboration. They have large networks of friends, staggeringly large. Again, these are not passive Web watchers. They are active Web community participants; more than half of online teens are what the Pew Internet and American Life Project calls “content creators.”
Do you provide an active way for your customers to regularly communicate with you and with each other? And is that way entertaining?
Why? Because the Net Generation likes entertainment! They like to have fun. Mike Veeck is a hero to this generation, and justifiably so.
If you haven’t read Veeck’s book “Fun is Good” and put it to work in your business and life, I urge you to do so immediately.
Finally, the Net Generation likes speed and innovation. I saw “The Bourne Ultimatum” the other night and imagined the rush Net Generation folks must feel as the CIA chief orders his staff to bring such-and-such up on the screen, and—poof—it’s there in an instant. Hot. Hot. Hot.
David L. Rawle is chairman of Charleston-based Rawle Murdy Associates Inc., a marketing, advertising and public relations firm. E-mail him at drawle@rawlemurdy.com or visit his blog at davidrawle.blogspot.com.
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