• Search Engine People, Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1 PM

Much has been made of the workplace habits and shopping behaviors of Millennials--or the generation born between 1980 and 1995--but lately there have been a number of reports focused on their search activity. Jennifer Osborne's post is likely culling insights from one of these reports, as she aims to illustrate why targeting Millennials with search means aiming squarely for the long tail.

Millennials don't "category search" like their older counterparts. There's no need for 20somethings to know the ins and outs of category-based search platforms like the Dewey Decimal System or even paper Yellow Pages--because they're used to searching for almost exactly what they're looking for with Google or Yahoo and getting the right answer, with one or two refinements at the most.

Osborne says that this lack of category-search instinct combines with the "I want it now" attitudes of Millennials s to create a situation where marketers need to develop strong keyword research and targeting plans. So for a brand like Pepsi, just owning the terms "soda," "Pepsi," or even "cool Pepsi commercial" on the SERPs won't garner the Millennials' attention. It's about ranking for a phrase like "I'm thirsty" or "drinks for a party" if you want to snag their dollars.

Read the whole story at Search Engine People »