How can you attract and keep the interest of your tech-savvy millennial audience?

Millennials, born between the years 1980 to 2000, are now in their 20’s and 30’s.  This means that the millennial generation largely dominates today’s workforce. Millennials are slowly surpassing the baby boomers - born between 1946 to 1964 - and are now the most influential population in the market. 

Being the first generation to grow with technology, they’re identified as ambitious and collaborative that thrive the most in online social environments. That being said, there are a lot of factors to consider if you are an educational institution that caters to this generation. 

One of the most challenging aspects about educating and interacting with millennials is getting their attention and continuously keeping them interested in whatever it is that you have to say. 

Tips for Easier Millennial Interaction:

Reduce the commute/Maximize the web

According to studies, 41% of millennials prefer electronic communication to face-to-face communication because millennials grew up at a time where nearly everything is readily available on the internet. They would rather go online than travel to auditoriums and venues for seminars. If you wish to impart more skills and knowledge to this generation, you might as well take advantage of the world wide web. Millennials comfortably function online since they’ve always known the internet as their go-to resource. With that in mind, conducting a webinar is probably the best solution since a webinar platform provides ease-of-access most millennials look for and it is cost-effective too.

Tap into social media networking

Most, if not all, of millennials are active online users and own several different social media accounts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. If you’re hoping to encourage millennials to attend your webinar, you might want to consider advertising on these online platforms they consider their watering holes. Make your invitations as visually appealing as possible with all the event details available online.  You can even upload video teasers or cuts from previous webinars to possibly attract more attendees. An example of a good execution of this tactic is the circulation of striking and captioned TED Talks videos on Facebook. Those are mostly just short portions of a longer talk that spread like wildfire because of social media influence.  

Choose an appealing and relevant topic

Getting millennials to register for your event doesn’t always equate to positive results. There is no guarantee that you can keep them long enough to go through the whole webinar without getting distracted. You have to start strong.  Perhaps start with a thought-provoking question or a debatable opening statement. The first few seconds are critical. Once you’re able to grab their attention, shift your focus into keeping that attention. 

Don’t solely rely on the written text, make use of visuals. Remember that your audience is only tuned it online and is, therefore, more exposed to an enormous amount of distractions.
Come up with an interesting topic, start strong, and prepare a coherent presentation to keep your audience until the end of the webinar. 

Get straight to the point

While it is important that the topic and content be interesting, it is also vital to keep in mind that they don’t want to spend an hour or so listening to something that can actually be summarized in half an hour. Make sure to keep to your webinar schedule. Be sure to get to the point with your presentation so they can go back to their to-dos and still have enough spare time for their personal plans. 

Challenge them

It is essential to offer them a challenge that can stir their problem-solving skills for a more engaging session. Millennials tend to get bored with mundane tasks and are more inclined to adventure. Give them something to think about and overcome through your webinar. This way, you can generate questions after the presentation and continue to build a relationship with them.

Be an agent of change

A lot of individuals from the millennial generation prefers to be a part of an organization that actively contributes to making this world a better place for everyone. They welcome the idea of participating in activities that would not only benefit them but the community as well. If your brand is huge on corporate social responsibility events, you can include bits of it in your presentation accordingly. 

It is vital to remember these things and combine it with a great webinar service in order for you to conduct a presentation that will resonate with your millennial audiences. Apart from those, just be yourself and don’t try too hard to be someone you’re not to try and impress them. Authenticity is as important when presenting because that is what this generation is ultimately looking for in people, companies, and brands.