INBOUND 2015 Executive Track: Shama Hyder "The Art of Marketing to Millenials"

Known as the Zen Master of Marketing by Entrepreneur magazine and the Millennial Master of the Universe by Fast Company, Shema Haider is a visionary strategist for the digital age. She's the best selling author of the Zen of Social Media Marketing and an acclaimed international keynote speaker. Has been invited to share the stage with the world's top leaders, including the Dalai Lama and President Obama. And she was recently named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Please join me in welcoming Shema Heider. This is the closest I get to being Amy Schumer, by the way. My mom's proud. Really she is. Great to be here, guys. Glad to see so many of you here. Can you guys hear me? Okay? I was told the mic's having some technical difficulty. Oh, just kidding. Ha ha. Hey, guys, do you think you can get me a handheld? Because I don't really the podium things. I'm short. I'm 5:2 on a good day and today is not that day. So I'm like 5, 4, 5, 5 at best. Yes. All right, thank you, George. Give it up for George. George is an engineer, so he knows these things. Thanks, George. Appreciate it. All right, here you go. All right, let's start again, shall we? Now, it's great to be here. It's great to see so many of you guys. I think of all the conferences I've been to, Inbound has the most energy. You guys stay out late, you get up early, you show up. It's fantastic. So let's talk millennials. How many love millennials? How many hate millennials? How many are just plain confused by millennials? Yeah, that's kind of the majority of how many millennials would like me to stop referring to you as millennials? Yeah, that's kind of like the cry that goes out. Alright, guys, for this presentation, I will be calling you millennials. For that I apologize. I am one of you. I think it keeps things constant. But millennials, also known as digital natives, are kind of the most talked about generation, the most revile. It's a very interesting group of people. And in five years, by 2020, they will be the majority of the workforce. Isn't that amazing? So we think of them now as a small group. But really, when we talk about millennials now and managing them and marketing to them, really what we should be talking about is people and the workforce, because that's. Hello. Thanks. Okay, that's who. So here's how we're going to break this down. Like, don't quit your day job. So not going to do that. So I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to try to project as much as I can. And if you can't hear me at any point, raise your hand. All right? And that way, I. The nice folks that are working so hard to make this happen will notice. So a little bit about me that's not in the bio. Why am I up here talking about Millennials? I am a millennial, but that's not why they gave me the stage. I also run a web marketing digital PR firm. We work with clients who serve millennials, and we help them figure out how to really get to that audience. So we have a lot of case studies and things I'll share with you. Today I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Any Longhorns? Yeah. Okay. Got one over there. Maybe two. Okay. So, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. I have a master's in organizational communication and technology. I did thy thesis on Twitter when it had 2,000 users. And no, I did not do it in 140 characters. You know, there's always someone in the crowd who's like, so how did you get your advisor degree in 140 characters? I'm like, I didn't. There's a whole thesis. But all this to say that, you know, got into social media in the early days, very passionate about technology, and that academic still comes out. So I like looking at things from an academic lens. We're going to do that today. We're going to look at things academically. Some statistics I'll share with you that may surprise you. You may feel like, I thought I knew millennials, but I really didn't have a good grasp. And then I'll give you five ways in which you can really attract this market, capture this market, true to the Talk's title, and then we'll take Q and A. Does that sound fair? So here's what I'd like to do, because everyone in here came with a different goal, and you came in with, you know, hoping that you'd learn something else. My goal is for everyone to leave here knowing something that they didn't know when they first walked in. Is that fair? Can you make that deal? And if I don't do that for you, please ask a question or talk to me after. I really like. That's my goal when I go to sessions, because I've been attending to. That's important for me. I feel like I need to be able to walk out with something. So that's what I like to promise my audiences as well. So what Makes a millennial who is a millennial. And if you look at the statistics right now, they'll say anyone who's 18 years to 34 is a millennial. And that's a big group of people. But I also think being a millennial or digital native is sort of a mindset in many ways. Has anybody seen this video? I think it just encompasses so well, kind of the future of technology and this generation. This is a two year old. Has anybody seen this? This two year old on YouTube, which you might want to look at once you leave. But it's adorable because the two year old. Brace yourself for this. The two year old thinks that the magazine is a broken iPad. How many of you guys are pretty excited when you pull out your tablets and things? Like, you get a little kick, like, this is cool that I can do this. I do. You know, it's a little thrill, like, hey, this is neat. But there's a whole generation where that's the default. And this video is great, by the way. This little girl has this iPad and she's a natural. She knows how to swipe and click and move things around, and she's happy. And her mom takes it away and gives her a magazine, and she is just devastated. She doesn't understand why the pictures don't move. She flips it over, she opens it. She looks at her mom like, what are you doing? And. And it's hilarious because then she thinks she's two years old. So you probably just figured out how to use, what, your digits? So she tests her finger to make sure her finger's not broken, and she looks up at her mom like, my finger's working. So clearly this thing is defunct. Imagine a whole generation that would first think that maybe something in them had given out before. They think the technology is not working. It's a fascinating way to kind of think of how quickly, how far we've come. How quickly. Also for millennials, they look at social media completely differently. It's not about a network. So someone earlier asked me, are you going to talk about Facebook, Twitter and such? And I was like, no, not so much, because these are tools and they come and go. But the broader concept which millennials really grew up with is this idea that people are now the media, people are now the media. And that's a huge shift. So if you've been chasing the next big social network, you're missing out, because it's not about the platform. The platforms will come and go. It's about this greater mindset. And let's you know, take a poll really quick of the room, and this will be kind of an interesting experiment. And I do this with all my audiences. Last time you wanted to check out a good restaurant, how many Yelped it movies? How many look at Rotten Tomatoes or Reviews before deciding which movie to go see? And if you look around, you'll see that the majority of us share into this phenomenon. We buy into this, and we're not depending on one person to tell us, hey, this is good or this is bad. It's really. We're relying on each other, aren't we? We're crowdsourcing information in a way to make decisions. And this is very true of Millennials. This is how they make decisions. They learn from each other. They're generally skeptical of authority. So telling them that this is how it is, it's usually not a great way to get things done. But building trust organically. And we'll talk about a few companies that are doing this really well, that's the way to go at it. So let me pause here again real quick and just ask how many are here looking to market to millennials? That's a big part of your audience. Just out of curiosity. Okay. The majority of you, how many manage Millennials? Okay. How many own Millennials? How many own. Some, like kids, teenage. Okay, whatever. Some of you own them. Okay. Proud owners of a millennial. Great. Awesome. So I want to share some statistics with you that I think might be surprising to some of you, and it might help. And by the way, if you follow me on Twitter Shama, I will tweet these slides out so you don't need to go wait to download something or whatnot. I'll just tweet the slides to you so you don't have to feel like you're taking pictures or writing everything down. They are extremely educated. This generation is the most educated generation in the history of the U.S. of the world. Isn't that amazing? The most educated generation ever. And an educated generation means that they are naturally more skeptical. They ask more questions, and they want to be better informed. They're also richer than Gen X. Did you know that the Gen Xers in the room are like, sure, why not take that, too? Millennials, you got everything else. Just go in and take the money, too. But of the 15%. So if you look at America and you say, how many people have wealth more than $2 million, right? Accumulated wealth. 15% of that population is Millennials. So this idea that millennials don't have money, it's absolutely not true. Now they're more careful in how they speak, they ask more questions, they do their due diligence. But this is a, this is a well off generation. They're also socially savvy, they're connected. They want to know what's happening in the world. They look beyond just kind of what you're trying to show them. And this is interesting. Millennials love a good deal. You know how they say millennials are like, you know, they're kind of, I think we have the sense of they're kind of flaky in some way and they're just out there. But really, they love a good deal. In fact, the 20 top apps downloaded by millennials, most of them are shopping in discount focused apps. So if you're working with this market and you think, well, they're not, you know, they only care about what we do for the environment. They're not looking for a good deal. Wrong. They're looking for both. Isn't that great? So this is a very educated, socially savvy. They're looking for a good deal. They want to fit, feel like they're getting value for what they're putting out there. So five ways to get up to speed with millennials. What's working with this crowd, this very educated, skeptical, diverse crowd of people who are really taking over the world. The first one is this sense that it's an identity based ecosystem. And what in the world does that mean? All right, do you guys remember how I told you I did my thesis on Twitter, right? And when I did my thesis, my question wasn't, hey, social media is awesome. You know, I was, my question was, why in the world do people use social media? Specifically, I was looking at Twitter and I said, why do people use Twitter? Why do people need to say, I just had, you know, a PBG for lunch. Good for you. You know, we're walking the dog. Wow, that's fantastic. You know, what's kind of the point of sharing our lives? And my hypothesis was that we do it to connect with each other, right? We do it to feel that sense of community, that sense of connection. It's for the grandma who wants to keep in touch with their grandkids in a different state. It's so we can keep in touch with friends that we make. But I was wrong. The primary reason people use social media is to showcase their own identity. And some of you are like, well, I knew it. We're so narcissistic. The world really is a giant selfie. Before we get carried away with that, let's Step back. And actually, it's so funny, as I've said this, I've had anthropologists and art historians in the audience who talked to me later. But it's fascinating, you know, when you look at the first cave drawings that are found, what do you think they're of? People, ourselves. So this idea of self reflection is not anything new. We've been doing it since the beginning of time. The sense of, who am I? I put that out to the world, I get feedback, and then based on that, I change who I am. Go back to kindergarten. The way you meet your best friend, you sat next to someone and they had a blue crayon, and you said, wait a second, I like blue crayons. They're like, get out of here. No. And then they had maybe a banana for lunch, and you said, I love bananas too. It's like, wow, we're just kindergarten soulmates here. But that's kind of how we become friends. That's how we connect with people, is you say, this is who I am. Or like an inbound. Like, I'm an inbound marketer. Wow, me too, right? And then, Pete, you get. You have. You have your values reflected back to you, and then you change based on that. So not to make this too much of a lecture on sociology or even psychology, but what does this mean for marketing, and what does it mean specifically marketing to millennials or brands? So for the longest time, companies said, what does our brand say about us? Right. Who are we and what do we want to project? And this is very Mad Men era. How do we want our brand to be perceived? Now it's a different question. The question now becomes, what does our brand allow our consumers to say about themselves? Take a second and just think about that, right? What does doing business with you allow me to say about my own brand? This is a fascinating switch. And a great example of this is Facebook's Timeline covers. And, you know, Facebook is very smart. They're ahead of the curve on a lot of things. And when they, you know, when they introduced timelines about two and a half years ago, people were complaining. They said, this looks terrible. What's up with this? It was really funny. Like, I have this one friend. Jessica was like, I hate timelines. This is a terrible look. And then every time I use Feed, you'd be like, jessica updated her cover photo. Jessica updated her cover photo again, Like, Jessica updated her cover photo for the 15th time. And it's because Facebook understands this concept, right? That people are really looking to showcase their own identity. Have you ever wondered why, like, the local cupcakery down the street gets more likes and more engagement and interaction than a conglomerate on some of these sites? It's because if I like that cupcakery, it says something about me. It allows me to say, hey, I like cupcakes. I like local businesses. I support my community. And for so long, people have been asking the wrong question. They've been looking at, what do we want our brand to project and say, no? How do you want people to feel when they interact with your brand? What does it allow them to see about themselves? And this is really a game changer. Guys, great example. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. You know, als, if you look at it in the big scheme of things, is a. Is a worthy but relatively small cause. How many are familiar with the Ice Bucket Challenge? How many partook in the Ice Bucket Challenge? Which is fantastic, isn't it? And you see so many non profits and so many people trying to do things like that. So what made this successful? You know what made it successful? It allowed you to say something about yourself. When you did the Ice Bucket Challenge, you were being funny, you were being involved, you were sharing something with your friends. So many of the people that I knew who did the Ice Bucket Challenge did not know what ALS was. They just got tagged and they were like, als Dunkin, water on my head. And that's okay too. It has to start somewhere. But these are great examples of organizations and causes that are really understanding this concept. Apple, great example, right? Because when you shop at Apple, it allows you to say something about yourself. Is that fair? Like people, Mac people, you define yourself. So it's less to do with the product and much more what it allows us to see about ourselves. And in fact, this next example is actually right here in Boston. How many have heard of Society for grown Ups? This is fascinating. So MassMutual started this. I speak to a lot of groups and I was actually speaking to a financial organization. And, you know, they're all worried because the biggest industry that's going to be disrupted by the millennials. So the future in like five years is the banking industry. Because millennials don't bank like they used to. You don't go into the. You mean it's not. You don't go into bank for all your banking needs. You might, you deposit checks on your phone. You know, everything's. You're kind of just looking for piecemeal things. You might use PayPal or Venmo or something else to send money and accept money, but that's changing. So MassMutual said, how do we take this concept of Apple and how do we, you know, what do we create? And if they'd create a mass mutual center, how many Millennials do you think would have shown up? Not many. So they created this awesome place, and they call it the Society for Grownups. And they have classes here. They have everything from cooking classes to travel classes, but they also have financial planning classes. They also have their advisors come in and talk to Millennials about paying off student loan debt, on how to save for their mortgage payment, on how to, you know, find a good deal in real estate. So this is great because. And it's. And it's very successful. They're reaching the market by saying, what does the market want? Not, you know, how do we want to be portrayed? And this is how banking is traditionally done. But they're asking the really important questions, and it's been a very successful project. They have classes that are absolutely full and technically sold out, and they're $5 classes. Now, imagine a local bank trying to hold that kind of class. And you have to pull people to come in. And here people are coming in. They feel like it's a place to hang out, to converge. But also, while they're at it, they're banking. They're making financial, you know, a financial commitment with MassMutual. They're doing business with them. So it's a fascinating way. And I think you're going to see a lot more of these pop up as time goes by. Second, big tactical tip. I can give you make etc your mantra. What does that mean? Educate. This audience wants to be educated. They're not okay with, hey, this is how we always do things. They want to know why. So when I was talking to the banking industry, I said, you know, millennials don't want to just accept that there's fees. What are these fees for? Where are they going? Why am I randomly being asked to pay more? Remember, because this is an educated audience. They want more information. And by the way, don't mistake this for they just want more data. They do need wisdom. They want filters. There's a difference. I'll give you a great example. Would you say that there's plenty of real estate sites now out there that let you list and sell your home and buy a home, right? There's tons. I mean, there's absolutely tons. Yet do you know that 90% of people prefer to work with a realtor? Why? Technically, you can list the home. You can, you know, sell it, you can buy it. You don't need a middle person. But for all that information, we still want wisdom to make good choices. That's just information. That's just data. Right? But I still want someone to tell me, hey, you know what? Because this is a really good neighborhood with schools for your kids. Or by the way, I know this doesn't say this, but just down the street, they're building a new park that's coming up. We're still looking for that. Millennials are still looking for that. Transparency. Transparency is absolutely huge with this generation. How many of you, by the way, and this is a really, I think, a salient point for many business owners, how many of you are ever scared of a bad review online? And that's fair. I run a company. I'll tell you that That's a fear I think most business owners share, right? Of someone saying something negative online, whether it's credible or not, whether it's just some person who can say whatever they want, whether it's true or not. But here's the fascinating thing. These days, it's not a negative review that hurts you. In fact, if you have a negative review but respond to it in a positive manner, in a proactive manner, do you know that it actually increases consumer trust? So if you have a choice between 100% perfect reviews and 90% great reviews, 10% bad, but you're responding in a really positive, proactive manner, that that's gonna get more trust and more customers through the door. It's fascinating, isn't it? I mean, think about Amazon. When you go shopping there, do you ever look at something that has all five star reviews and you're like, really? Nobody didn't like this product. We're skeptical. Millennials, even more so. So that transparency, the ability to stand up and say, look, sorry, Mia Culpo, or here's how we'll make it better, that gets you more points. I really like Peter Assetto, and I don't know him personally. I follow him on Twitter because I feel like he's a great example of good leadership. By the way, there's Charlene Lee's session, I think is after this, on digital leadership. If you were wondering kind of where to go, that would probably be a good one. I've read her book and it's fantastic. So this idea of transparency, of owning up and saying, hey, this is how we do business. And that does mean that does start top down. So getting your top leaders, getting them to be more human, getting them to be more transparent. Choices. Choices are so important to millennials. You know, they did a study, and they found that 40% of millennials do not receive messages from businesses to the communication mode of their choice. They're getting texts when they wanted email, or they're getting email when they wanted something else. They're not getting communicated the way they want to be communicated to. And this is really important, guys, because we live in a very interesting time and where choices are everything, and we've gotten so used to it, we don't even realize it. I'll share a funny story with you. I think as consumers have gotten demanding more and more, we, as producers and marketers have to rise to meet that same demand that we as consumers have created. But I'll give you an example. So a book called the Zen of Social Media Marketing. It's now coming out in its fourth edition. But when the second or third edition was coming out, this was right when the iPad came out. Right when the iPad came out. And this gentleman emailed me, and he said, hey, Shama, love your stuff. So disappointed that I can't read your book on my iPad. And I talked to my team, and I was like, guys, didn't it come out yesterday? Like, weren't you. Some of you, like, Mac people standing in line? And they were like, yeah. So I responded to him and I said, sir, do you mean the iPad, the device that came out yesterday? What do you think? He responded with, yes. He responded with, yes. That's just how quickly things change and how we're used to getting. How quickly we expect that we get a new device and everything should just work seamlessly on it. These are the choices that we've grown accustomed to. Right now, for example, some of you are hearing this live. How many think, hey, I'd love to get that deck later. I'd love to see the slides later. How many would love to see this as a podcast that you can listen to while you work out More hands? How many would like a video of this to watch later? Fantastic. How many of you would like me to print this, transcribe it, print it, and put it on your desk? You definitely need to be in this room right now for the session, by the way. So glad you made this choice today. Good decisions, people, good decisions. But giving millennials choices. But it's not just a millennial thing, right? It's choices. Because we as a society are becoming that. So it's so funny, because they call this session capturing the millennial market, but it really should be capturing the modern market, because that's who we're talking about. Recognize the diversity in millennials. Do you know that 14% of all millennials are first generation? 20% are Latino and bilingual. Isn't that amazing? 73% like the multicultural aspect that new cultures bring to America versus 60% of boomers. By the way, all these stats that I'm sharing, they're based of a report that Nielsen produced in 2014. So in case you're wondering where I'm getting my statistics, it's Nielsen. It's a very diverse audience because even age wise, they're so diverse. If you're serving an 18, 19 year old demographic, they're into emojis. If you try to emoji a 34 year old, they're gonna look at you like, what? It's so funny because they have millennial friends and a lot of them still like paper and they print things out and they write things. So even in millennials, there's so much diversity in how they want to be communicated to what they're looking for. Someone who's 21, their priorities are going to be very different than someone who is 32. Would you say that's fair? But they're all still grouped in as millennials. So when you're thinking about millennials, don't just use it sort of as a broad, like these are young people, but really look at who's your audience and what is it that they're going to best respond to? Think multi channel. This is also really, really big in terms of, you know, this is an audience that doesn't just use one device. They've got their laptops, their tablets, their phones, and they expect things to be very seamless. For example, when you start watching Netflix on your television, if you pause and you go to your iPad, do you realize you could pick it up right where you left off? There's not a gap, right? And this is an audience that's very used to that. They're used to a very seamless experience. So at a very basic level, you want to make sure that things are mobile friendly. I know that sounds like really elementary, but there's so many sites I see that are still not mobile optimized, or people are looking on smartphones and they're interacting through multiple devices at once. Sometimes you can listen and it's really direct. Like someone on Twitter will say, I'm so tired of Brand X or I hate banking with or, man, the store is terrible. And that's great because that's your cue to respond. Sometimes these signals are a little more detailed, right? And it takes a little more digging to get to the bottom of it. But think multi channel, and think, how can you decode these signals? Number five, what moves Millennials most is other millennials. So Bentley University has been doing a lot of work on millennials in the workplace. And, you know, not only am I Millennial CEO, and we work with clients, we also have Millennial employees. So I would say 50% of my workforce is millennials. And I will tell you that same thing that Bentley found that they're motivated more by other millennials than anything else. What their peers tell them matters more than what a TV ad is going to tell them or what your company tries to tell them. And there's ways to leverage this, but that's just. Just the kind of. The important thing to keep in mind. Bentley University asked me to do their convocation address two years ago, and they said it was extremely well received, and I was thrilled. And I was thinking, wow, there's a lot of great convocation and graduation speeches out there. But I realized that as I got feedback from the students, the most common thread wasn't, wow, you said this. And it really moved me. There's some element of that, but there was a sense of, wow, you're like me. You're not that much older than me. This is really cool. It was cool to see someone in our age group speak, or there was that relatable aspect, and I think that's why it resonated so well. And that's true. Studies show that leveraging other millennials will have a lot more impact. Here are some examples of millennials. How many are familiar with Ramit Sethi? Interesting. How many of you are familiar with I will teach you to be rich? It's a very interesting blog community. Ramit has over a million followers and people who follow his financial advice. More than most banks can ever hope to get. More than most credit card companies can ever hope to get. And this community follows him. They love his tips. They'll sign up for the account he tells them to sign up for. They will do. You know, he's really built a lot of trust with this community. How many are familiar with Michelle Phan? Okay, Funny that more guys raised their hands on that one. I don't want to know. All right, so Michelle Phan is a millennial. She started a YouTube channel for makeup. Quickly amassed more than a billion views on one of her videos. And l' Oreal partnered with her, and she's working, partnering with a lot of different types of companies now that want to reach that demographic and audience. So there's Millennials almost in every industry that have trust and have built up a strong reputation within that community. Here's another example. When I talk about leveraging other millennials, I don't mean that you have to get Bieber or you have to get the Kardashians or you have to get these huge influencers. You have to find influencers in your category. So one of the things that we've been doing a lot lately has been influencer marketing for our clients. And here's one of our clients, Promax, it's a nutrition bar. And we essentially reached out to what you would call influencers. And by the way, they found in 2014 that for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, the ROI was $6.85. So it's absolutely huge on how much impact these Instagrammers and these Twitter users and these Facebook users have. So for Promax, we got bars and we sent them out to very key influencers and, you know, full transparency. They could say they got the bars and they would talk about it. They would choose the social channel of their choice. This has been a six month campaign and their projected sales are set to rise 30% based on this campaign alone. 30% direct site, 80% on Amazon, Instagram saw 180% increase in engagement. And in fact, now we've gotten so much traction that we have influencers coming to us. So we just got an email from one of the stars. They won't give his name away just yet. It was in the Hunger Games and said, hey, these bars are really cool. Can you send me, can you send me a box? Like I work out. I'd love to talk about this. I think his Instagram following is like 128,000 people and they're all people who are interested in the same things that he's interested in. So I would highly encourage that. If you are looking to market to millennials that you focus in on, how do you leverage influencers? How do you leverage the places that they trust and the people that they trust? And the key to doing this is a really transparent manner. Do it as an organized campaign approach. Like I said, of all, I think of all the tactics that we've been doing for our clients in the last year, especially for B2C companies, but even some for B2B companies, we find that influencer marketing by far has the quickest ROI and the most long standing roi. Because this isn't like a social blurb that you see a blip and then goes away. It's amazing because these guys come up in search results. I mean, this. This sort of thing has staying power, so it's been a very effective tactic that we've used. And in that note, I would love to take some questions from you guys about Millennials marketing, whatever you may have. There's mics in the middle, by the way, for those of you who are heading out. Have a great rest of the conference and I will tweet out the slides. If you're looking for the slides later, please go ahead and follow me. Or if you have questions and you don't get to them yet, you can also email me. So meanwhile, I'm happy to take questions. So please feel free to come up here. Thank you. Yes, ma'. Am. That was awesome. I couldn't take notes fast enough. I appreciate that. Thank you. I had a question. From my company's perspective, it's in recruitment, in employee recruitment and recruiting employees and tweaking and shifting the way that we approach that. Do you have any specific advice around that? Yeah, absolutely. So I actually do a lot of work with companies, and I've done a lot of speaking engagements for organizations that are looking at recruitment, specifically of Millennials. One of the most easy tactics I can give you, like, things that you can do right out the door, leverage other Millennials and let them tell the story about what it's like like to work for the company. By far, one of the most great things you can do. For example, we saw we already get a lot of intern applications. We get a lot of applications in general, but we saw a huge uptick when we started letting our interns blog for us. And so once a week we have, like, from an intern perspective, and they talk about, like, the projects they worked with, what their experience was like, what their supervisors are like, and that's been really effective. Again, it goes back to leveraging other Millennials. So that would be like, a really quick tactic that you could implement. Hey, scarf. Yes. Okay. I like it. Thank you. So I was wondering if you can tell us a bit about getting Millennials to actually donate or contribute to non for profit organizations. Right. I mean, I'm a Millennial, but I find that often we care about these things, but we don't actually do anything besides talk about them. Yeah, so that's a great question. And they actually have done a lot of studies on this, not just Millennials, but how do you get people to give in general? And they found that the majority of the reason that someone doesn't give, and they looked at a sample of people who have given in the Past, they're comfortable with technology. So it's not any one of those reasons. It's because they didn't feel like their contribution was going to make a difference. And what that means is for nonprofits, trying to reach that crowd, tell them a better story that lets them connect with what they're doing. Right? So, for example, Kiva does a great job of this, because you're not just giving money to this to Kiva, but you're actually supporting that farmer in Ecuador, right, To buy a cow for his fields. Like, you feel a very direct connection. So for nonprofits, that's really the way to do it, is how do you make them feel like that money that you're giving is going to directly make an impact? And, of course, every dollar does. But it's that idea of kind of showing that in real time and letting them feel that difference, that's really the trick to getting people to donate versus just talking. Exactly. Showing them. And again, Kiva, great example, because, you know, when you look at what you're donating to, there's stories of people. You're talking about Yasmeen, who has four kids in school and a husband, and, you know, she's got this lovely little candy store, and she just needs $200 more so she can buy this one thing and expand her business. Having that sort of story and connection, that's what allows people to give. Okay, so great question. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. When working with influencers, how do you do so it won't seem fake? I mean, when I see messy with herbalife T shirt, I see. I don't see that working. So I don't know if you have something. So that's a great question. Thank you. So how do you keep influencer relations really organic? And I think here's the thing you have to personalize. Well, let me first say this. It takes time, right? You can't say, here. Here's 15 influencers I found. Here's one email that I'm gonna send to them all. It takes time because you have to build a relationship with them. A lot of times, when we identify influencers, we'll start retweeting them. We'll start engaging with them. We'll start commenting on their blogs. So we'll start building that relationship long before there's any ask, even if the ask is, here's something free. Write about us. So that's really important. And then personalization, when you're talking to someone and dealing with them as that's a human being, right? Not just like an influencer, but those kinds of things go a long way. And then being transparent, being really open, this is what we do. If you're the CEO, emailing like, this is my company. We're really proud of this. We'd love to get your honest opinion. That kind of transparency goes a long way too. And it is an organic effort. Right. It's not like you'll do this one thing, you'll see a huge spike, and it's gone. It's something that you constantly have to keep working at, but it's the best way to get this market. Thank you. Sorry. One here and I'll hop back yesterday. Hey, Shama, any tips on getting millennial research scientists to share socially? Wow, I have not heard that one before. Okay. Getting millennial research scientists. So I'm guessing from an academic perspective, Right? Okay, so that's a great question and something I think about a lot of. I think more than millennials, the academic world has to shift a little bit. Because in academia, what's valued is publish or perish. Right? So you're focused on papers, you're focused. See, the whole thing academia has been built on is you keep your knowledge to yourself until you're published and you make your debut. So I think the incentive has to change. Right. Maybe the university does a contest where everyone is welcome to share their research in 140 characters or less. Something fun, something engaging, or in a Tumblr, something that lets them take what they're doing, share it with the masses, and then maybe the dean picks one student. Right. That really did a great job kind of taking academia and reaching the people. But I think it's an incentive issue. In that case, thank you for the question. Glad people are thinking about academia. It's so important. Yes, ma'. Am. How. Hi. Hi. I'm at mit. So you. So you're smart. Got it. Go on. No, well, just. I just went to state school. No, it's not just. I'm proud of you, basically because we have, like, a broad range of millennials, and I know you touched on that a little bit. So, like, we have the undergrads and we have the graduates and all that. So it's very broad. So any kind of tips on how to appeal to such a broad range? And it's so diverse. Yeah. So use a lot of emojis. I'm kidding. You know, you can't. Okay, so the question is, when you're reaching such a diverse range, some of those things are applicable across the board. Right. That they want to be educated, they want choices. So I think the big thing there is the choices part. So, for example, when you disseminate information, allowing people to say, hey, listen, if you want this information, you can follow us on our Facebook and we update, for example, what's going on, you can choose, right? Twitter, you can choose. If you'd rather get an email, choose the email. If you would rather get a text, choose the text. By giving people choices like that, especially millennials across the diverse, you have a much higher chance of getting higher visibility across the board. And so the information can stay the same, but. But you're giving them options in terms of different modes to receive the information. That's probably a really easy, like, low hanging fruit tactic. All right, thank you. Thanks. I'm so glad someone from MIT came to listen. I feel proud, feel special. Hey, Shama. Hi. This was an awesome talk. Oh, thank you. I'm an anthropologist who did research in basically how graffiti is manifesting as a tribe on Instagram. Dude, that's so cool. So I should connect you to the gal who was asking. That's awesome, right? But now I have a startup that's an influencer marketing marketplace. The question I'm asking is that marketing Zen seems to really have nailed sort of engaging the right tribes on these different platforms. What are you guys doing to discover and manage? Sort of. So thank you for the compliment and for the question. You know, I will say it's an organic process. So I would say that half the stuff we try doesn't work, but we're very quick to pivot. So it's. I think the trick is knowing how long to try something before pivoting. So some things, they take a while. Like certain influencers are like, man, if we could just get this one person for our client, like, that would be golden. And it might take four months for us to continuously keep doing that. I think the broader question, the broader. To answer your broader question, a lot of it is providing value consistently. And we do that through content. So we like to think that we out educate anyone else trying to build a community. We have more blog posts, better blog posts. We're always raising the bar for ourselves, right? And I personally see myself as sort of chief Value officer. Like, my job is to create good value for my employees, for the greater audience, for our clients, and then that gets disseminated across all our social platforms. But we always start with good content. Like, how are we constantly providing value and how do we do it in different ways? So not just, hey, we've got written Content, but infographics, you know, videos, podcasting. How do we take this information and give people. Give it to people in the way that they want to? They'd want to absorb it. Yes. Is that fair? All right. Good. Okay. Yes. Nothing wrong with umit. Nothing. I think it's awesome. It's only because we couldn't get in the verbitter. Okay. Any other questions that I can answer for you? Hi, Shama, this is Kevin. Hi, Kevin. Hi. Over here. You're actually going to be doing an online webinar for us for WPI next week. Oh, Worcester Polytech. I wanted to say hi. Everybody wants to go on the online webinar. Just look up WPI for the business school. Now, you talked about education being really big for the millennials. Yes. What about formalized education? Education? How do you attract millennials to go back and want to go to B school or get educated? Kevin, Kevin, I'm so glad that you stood up and asked that question. Here's the thing for millennials, right? With formalized education or otherwise, the key thing for them is are they getting a good bang for their buck? That's what millennials care about. I don't think to them it's so important that it's formalized or they want not structured. I think they're asking themselves, when I get out, what do I get out of this? So for formalized education for B school, I think they need to change the value proposition. It's not enough to say, well, we can get you, you know, like, you can intern at Goldman Sachs for two years and be like, that's not enough of a value proposition. When someone's like, but I can get a great letter to someone at Goldman Sachs and it'll go, you know, it'll get picked up and then I'll get the internship. So because there's so much many different routes, right, to get to end goals, B school really has to position itself to say, here's why we're the best, fastest, smartest route to that. So we think in some way you have to think beyond, like, just classes, right? Here's what we offer. But what do you help them get at the end of the day? So if I'm going to invest X amount or the 40, 50,000 or whatever business school costs, how am I going to recoup that? And you're thinking about millennials. Many of them are already saddled with undergrad debt. So that's a big thing, right? So how am I going to get out and know that I'm just not in more debt now, at the end of the day, how am I going to get more value? And I think that's the question millennials always ask themselves. Great. Thank you. Thank you. And at that point, they're telling me to stop. So you guys have been a lovely audience. I'd say I'll be here all week, but I'm leaving.