How Disney Uses Social Media to Connect to Millennials

The Walt Disney Company has several strengths that position it as the world’s leading providers of entertainment. Much of Disney’s success in their theme parks, films, television shows, music, merchandise and now, online and social media experiences, is owed to its world-class brand. Its ability to create, market, and profit from its intellectual property is supported by almost a century of widely loved characters and internationally popular franchises.

Many millennials today were raised on Disney. They watched every Disney movie, loved Mickey Mouse, and have been to a Disney Park at least once in their lifetime. It is a recognizable brand that they trust, a belief that is generally passed from parent to child even without the interference of outside advertising.

However, millennial's general trust and respect for companies has taken a huge downturn compared to the last 4 years (The 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey 5). Disney is an outlier in this. It resonates with millennials because they grew up with this brand. It's kept up with their changing interests and now includes some of the most popular franchises in the world. In fact, in 2017 Disney was ranked as the "Most Intimate Brand" among millennials, because Disney is the brand they turn to when they want to relief from everyday life (MBLM Brand Intimacy, 2017)

The Walt Disney Company is known for translating creativity into pioneering products and services and their core values are centered on the idea of innovation, this is a quality that millennials respect in companies, and are loyal to businesses that are focused less on the money and more on the product they give consumers. Walt Disney himself was an innovator who created an empire based on a cartoon drawing of a mouse, and expanded his reach into theme parks in the hopes of providing a better experience for families.

Walt's ideology of “if you can dream it, you can do it” resonates with millennials, and if they believe in a company, they will be loyal to it.

Millennials, those born between 1982 and 2000, are technologically savvy, focused on being mobile and highly value entertainment. Back in a 2014, a Statista study showed that 90% of millennials were using smartphones and 93% were utilizing social media, therefore anything and everything digital is a must for this generation. With 1.8 billion millennials in the world, a quarter of the population, they are an extremely powerful consumer base. This generation wants to actively participate and be included as partners in the brands they love, and social media gives them the chance to do just that.

So how is Disney fostering this connection with millennials?

If nothing else, Disney knows the importance of having a good content marketing strategy, and with over 772 different digital channels under its umbrella and almost 100 years worth of good content at their disposal, they are one of the most viewed entertainment brands. They focus on a nostalgic and emotional marketing technique. To harness these emotions, Disney has mastered the use of nostalgia by reviving old classics. The response to this strategy has been very successful since Disney has been ingrained in the lives of almost all millennials, and has left a very strong imprint.

2018 brought millennials the highly anticipated sequel to The Incredibles. Even with a 14 year year gap between the two, it was a huge box office success garnering $231 million globally, making it the 8th largest movie opening ever! In 2019 alone, Disney plans to release live action remakes of The Lion King, Aladdin and Dumbo, along with sequels to popular classic films such as Mary Poppins and Toy Story. Promoting these films on social media not only gets the word out, but it gets millennials excited and talking about it in anticipation with their friends, enticing them to see the newest adaptation.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram is a critical platform for Disney. With several accounts segmented out for franchises, theme parks, movies, and music, they are able to reach a huge number of users. Their main @Disney Instagram account (14.3M followers) is full of exclusive content that users won't find anywhere else. It shows the more human side of Disney, such as retro images focused around the history of the company, moments captured in the parks, behind the scenes content of their films, exclusive first looks and of course, frequent promotional images.

Take the Star Wars franchise for example. A huge number of Star Wars fans are millennials, and Disney keeps interest strong even after a film has been released with diverse online content such as fun facts, videos, and even recipes for Stormtrooper cookies!

FACEBOOK

Facebook is Disney's most popular social platform, with 51M followers. It's the place where a lot of content from their different segmented accounts comes together through cross-promotion. They keep the content visual, encourage people to share it to their own profiles. They include a variety of videos, as Facebook is a main channel for millennials when viewing video content, and other topics such as "Today In Disney History", or behind the scenes looks, and compelling images. Take a look at the image above of Lizzie McGuire. As a millennial myself, I grew up watching Lizzie McGuire, so seeing this post immediately caught my attention and made me internally say "awwww". With over 1,000 shares, many of those most likely millennials, Disney has very easily gotten this content out there and let other millennials know that this is the kind of content they'll see if they follow their accounts.

They also provide links to online quizzes or interesting articles that they know their millennial audience will love. I mean, who wouldn't want to know which Hollywood Chris is their soulmate, right? 

YouTube is an important platform in Disney's effort to reach millennials. The success of their videos are due to the fact that they are brief and entertaining, requiring only a short attention span, but also have high production values, just like Disney films. Video is also more likely to meet their desire to immerse themselves in their passions. This is good news for Disney because when consumers are deeply engaged with their content, it’s a great opportunity for their brand message to resonate.

A 2017 study by eMarketer found that millennials log onto YouTube at least once a day and Defy Media says they spend almost 11 hours a week watching videos. Disney shares cute short films, playlist sessions, sing-alongs, style tips and even DIY crafts. They have expanded to other accounts that encapsulate anything their consumers could want. Disney obviously knows the influence video content has on their millennial consumers since they spent $1 billion in 2014 to purchase Maker Studios, one of YouTube's largest multichannel networks. After a restructuring in 2017, Disney combined Maker talent and brands with their existing web properties into the newly created Disney Digital Network. This revamping combined 300 social media channels that reach a total audience of over a billion.

Their Twitter page is incredibly visual, with an image, gif or video included in every post. The premise of their account is to create relatable, inspiring and funny content using famous quotes, scenes and characters from Disney films. Everyone can relate to the morals of or humor in a Disney story, so this translates to easily shareable content that users can and want to quickly retweet with their followers. They retweet content that the stars of their films put out, like Tom Hanks and Josh Gaad. Similar to Facebook and Instagram, a lot of the content is cross-promoted across their channels, but this just gives the content a better opportunity to be seen by more people.

Their Pinterest page is a plethora of fun and innovative content. With 42 boards and just over 10,000 pins, ranging from Disney inspired food to DIY crafts and Disney style inspiration there is no shortage of interests for Pinterest users to repin. On Pinterest it is good to have this variety of different categories to expand audience engagement. Food inspiration is a very popular category on Pinterest, so having multiple boards dedicated to food that is inspired by Disney parks and movies has been very successful for them. 

Then you also have content created by Disney influencers. From Instagram accounts, blogs, YouTube channels, and even online small shops, individuals are sharing their love for Disney all across the Internet. Not only do they help Disney advertise the brand, but they help cultivate an online community centered around the shared love social media users have for the magic that Disney creates, which makes Disney itself part of their everyday lives. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of boards on Pinterest, YouTube channels, Instagram accounts, Twitter profiles, Facebook pages and blogs dedicated to Disney created by these loyal consumers. Disney has started to utilize these influencers to promote new offerings, such as their special ticketed events in the parks, or new merchandise, to their followers.

Overall, Disney knows how to utilize their social media to reach their millennial consumers. Everything they stand for, everything their brand means, is represented in the content they create. Masterful brand storytelling that resonates and inspires makes Disney one of the most effective brand storytellers of the modern era. It's content creation team produces content that is authentic to the brand’s appeal while using the latest technology to update it for today’s digital audiences. By invoking a feeling of nostalgia while also promoting innovation and allowing audiences to be involved in making the brand what it is today, Disney has truly captured the hearts of the millennial generation. The amazing thing about Disney's marketing strategy is that even with all these different platforms that consumers can follow, and all the content that is being pushed out, you don't even realize you're being marketed to.