Why Engaging Generation Z is like Engaging no other Generation

Treating users like Football Fans

Certain football managers are truly loved by their fans. I’m thinking of the likes of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool and Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid- it’s almost as if the fans are as loyal to their manager as they are to the club.

It’s clear that these managers make an extra effort to please their fans. For good reason — after all, so many die-hard fans pay good money to watch their team each week, while thousands more fans sacrifice several hours of their day when watching their team play on TV. Arguably, bonding with fans is what makes professional football worth playing.

At Flair, we’re going above-and-beyond to ensure we have a strong bond with our community — a community that is predominantly made up of ‘Gen Z’, as our core target market is boys and girls aged 10–18. Essentially, our users are to us what fans are to a football club — our raison d’être. What gets me up in the morning is building a product to make their lives more enjoyable.

On a day-to-day basis one of my biggest responsibilities is managing our Instagram. We have over 3000 young footballers following the account, and since I’ve been spending so much time living in their world, I’ve been able to notice three distinct trends that are unique to engaging with their generation. Understanding these three trends has been the key to us forming such a loyal fan base so far.

Influence

The first trend that comes to mind is Gen Z’s desire to be influential. They’ve grown up in an age where anyone can have their voice heard on the internet, and some people’s views can reach millions of people. We’ve tried to harness this desire by giving social recognition to people who positively contribute to our community and product.

I have started to use Instagram’s new ‘Questions’ feature to try and better understand the footballing lives of our community. Whenever people respond with an interesting answer, I share their response to our 3000 followers and tag them to make sure they get the recognition they are craving.

When users create exceptional content and submit it to us, I always do my best to share it to our Instagram page and tag them. Giving them that social validation is their ‘payment’ for the content they’ve created for us.

Originality

Secondly, originality is more important to Gen Z than to any previous generation. There’s a crazy amount of content on the internet, with so many products competing for attention, so the only way to truly stand out is to be different.

Luckily, we set out to differentiate from the get-go. We made a commitment that our brand would pay minimal attention to the pro game and instead focus entirely on putting the spotlight on youth football players. Scrolling down our Instagram feed, it’s easy to see we’ve stayed true to this promise. The kids have noticed this and many of our followers now see Flair as the go-to place to share their personal football journey.

Security

Lastly, we’ve found it staggering how security-conscious Gen Zers tend to be. When trawling through Instagram pages, we’ve noticed that a very high percentage of them opt for private profiles. They tend to be very wary of sharing sensitive information online and often say they’ve learned how to be internet safe either from their parents or teachers.

I think that my generation, Millennials, were the guinea-pigs of the internet — we used social networks like MSN without being properly educated on how dangerous using the internet can be for young people. It’s largely because of the horrific stories of online catfishing and paedophilia that came out in the 2000s that has led to the next generation, Gen Z, being so much better informed about online safety.

I always bear this in mind when engaging with young players via our Instagram account. Whenever we receive a new follower or I reach out to a player on Instagram, the first thing I do is explain to them who is speaking and link them to my business Instagram profile — this profile documents our journey so far and has photos of our team alongside credible people in football (e.g. Michael Essien). This helps to legitimise us as a brand and makes young players know that it’s safe to share their content with us.

We now sense-check all of our engagement initiatives against these three criteria of Influence, Originality and Security. It’s a simple practice for any brand looking to engage Gen Z and one that is proving very effective for us.