This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
In today's episode, we explore the art of engaging with Gen Z. What if you are not Gen Z and you want to market to Gen Z or at least communicate, share your messages and posts, et cetera. How do you connect authentically with a younger generation without pandering, without losing your unique voice, without making a big mistake? I think we're always worried about that. We're like, hey, maybe I'm this age, whatever that is.
And I want to know if my message can be effective for people of a different age, could be older in fact. We're gonna look specifically here today at Gen Z. But I think whenever you're trying to go cross-generation, you have both some opportunities and some potential pitfalls. So let's hear today from listener Elaine. She's a marketer, she's in her mid 40s, hoping to bridge that generational gap.
So I'm excited to hear Elaine's message and give a response. I also want to give a shout out to my friend Brian Clark. He writes a sub-stack called Longevity Gains, longevitygains.com, marketing to what he calls the most powerful economic group on the planet. So he is talking specifically about Gen X. I believe it's Gen X.
Well, he's talking about people who are 50 and older specifically. So maybe it's actually the, is it the high end or the low end? I always get those confused. One range or one side of Gen X and maybe slightly above. Anyway, the point is he's writing specifically about marketing to people of a certain generation, longevitygains.com.
Check that out for anybody who's interested in that. And let's talk about Gen Z marketing with Elaine's question coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, Chris. I'm Elaine, a marketer from Atlanta in my mid 40s. I've been tuning into your podcast for insights on connecting with younger audiences.
How can someone from an older generation effectively reach and engage with Gen Z? Are there specific platforms or messaging strategies that resonate best with this demographic? I don't want to come off the wrong way, but I also don't want to ignore an entire generation. [Music]
Elaine, thank you so much for being out there and thanks for raising this concern or this question. Like you want to reach people, you don't want to come off the wrong way, but you also don't want to ignore an entire generation.
And I think that is key. Don't ignore an entire generation. And we're talking about Gen Z here, but as I said in the introduction could be any generation. Think about your ideas. I always think content first.
Like I want to make the best possible content that I can. And if I am truly creating something that is valuable and helpful or interesting, somehow motivational, like whatever the desired benefit is, if I'm truly creating something that's helpful, then it doesn't matter so much, what kind of language I'm using or if I have like my own style that might be different from some people in another generation. I just don't worry about that too much because I think it's better to focus on your message, like focus on your message, your content, and that it will reach the right people over time, as opposed to thinking like, how do I specifically adapt this to reach this age group? When in reality, we know that people within any age group are gonna vary a great deal as well. There are a lot of people in any particular generation who are like, okay, some marketer at some point decided that I am a millennial or I am a baby boomer or whatever the case may be, therefore I'm gonna have these certain behaviors and values and beliefs, but actually I've always felt a little bit different from other people my age, for whatever reason.
So don't forget about all those people. Like I'm always wanting to advocate for the minority voice, for someone who's like, I don't necessarily identify with what everybody else wants. Now that said, I think interactive engagement is important. Interactive engagement, polls, challenges, user-generated content, anything that increases the interactive element or at least offers the chance for interactivity. Sometimes not everybody wants it, but it's nice to have the option.
And then platform choice, well, I mean there, I think it does matter generationally speaking, Gen Z is most active on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram maybe third. So you wanna think about at least one of those platforms if you really do want to reach Gen Z. Those are my first thoughts for Elaine. Elaine, I hope they're helpful and for everybody else out there as well. Listen, I just wanna say, don't be overwhelmed.
I should talk about that some more in future episodes. There's so many things you could do to grow and market your side hustle and develop different ideas. And it's really easy to get lost in like, oh, but I need to be doing this and this and this and so-and-so did this. Well, you gotta figure out what's best for you. And I think one of the best things you can do, not only for your side hustle, but for your life is to opt out of stuff and to just kind of reduce the overwhelm.
So a little bit of a different topic, but I did want to mention it. More to come on that and other fronts, sidehustleschool.com, some resources, show notes for every episode, and of course a new episode every single day. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
