You did it, you pulled the trigger and hired someone right out of college. Maybe you had a good feeling about the candidate, maybe you were looking for someone young in the first place, or maybe this was the best you could do with your budget.

The Black Sheep isn’t a huge shop– there’s about 20 full-time employees, a few part-time interns, and a boatload of college-level contractors that make our ship sail smoothly. That’s why, when we make a hire, it’s such a big deal; we need to get it right. If we make a mistake with a hire, we’ve wasted time interviewing, time onboarding, time training, and time, probably, firing and starting the whole process over. It’s bad news.

We’re assuming that you’re reading our blog because you’re a marketing pro looking for ways to better connect with the 18-to-24-year-old demographic. And while you’re going to learn a lot in this post, we’re going to start by stating something obvious — college students are on social media 24/7 (duh!). Having a deep understanding of college students and their engagement habits, The Black Sheep has seen the most success reaching 18 to 24-year-olds using digital ads for lead generation, brand awareness and promoting events and special offers. Below are some of our best tips when it comes to executing a successful digital ad campaign:

YouTube is used by more than 94 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds. That’s more than Facebook (80%), Snapchat (78%), Instagram (71%) and Twitter (45%). Not utilizing YouTube? Then you’re missing out. Utilizing YouTube, but aren’t seeing the results you expected? Cool, we’re here to give you some tips on the best ways to engage younger audiences on YouTube, so read on. 

With social and digital content rapidly evolving in the marketing space, brands and agencies find themselves asking why their social content and strategies keep failing. Whether a brand’s social media account isn’t growing, receiving “likes” or comments as expected, or worse, is experiencing a decrease in followers, the answer almost always boils down to what type of content is being posted. In fact, Sprout Social released their 2019 Index and stated, “Consumers want to be engaged and entertained before they buy, and that 50% of all marketers say that entertaining (posts) are more effective than discounts and sales content in helping reach their goals.”

The collegiate audience is one of the most complex and untapped resources for marketers, mostly because of the lack of research and understanding of college students. Why? Simply put, the landscape changes too rapidly. With social media revolutionizing the way marketers communicate with younger audiences in the last decade, strategic approaches to reach college students in effective ways also need to change.