Although social media is one of the best platforms that companies can use for marketing campaigns, it seems as though the range of 18 to 24-year-olds is immune to even the most innovative marketing strategies on social media. According to recent reports, an estimated 96% of young Americans have accounts on social media platforms, and 70% of users see advertisements on social media sites, but only about 32% of users say that they would click on those advertisements.

According to the study, most school-aged young Americans think that there are too much ads on social media platforms and that the ads get in the way of the purpose of the sites — which is to connect with others who share similar interests, and not to have your search history copied and used to place each individual into target audience groups. Between paid and promoted advertisements, young users are simply getting annoyed by the number of ads on their screens without having control over which ads appear.

Even though social media is becoming one of the most important platforms for everything from basic news stories to in-depth marketing campaigns, it appears as though many marketing agencies are still out of touch with what young adults want to see. Specifically with SEO marketing, social media platforms present many opportunities for businesses to connect with target audiences, and industry experts agree that ignoring social media platforms is likely to hurt businesses in the long run.

Although marketing experts are quick to note the importance of social media sites, it’s clear that keeping up with the sites themselves is becoming more difficult than ever. Perhaps the most telling difficulty of social media is the fact that the Student Village report referenced here, the 2014 Student Social Media report, is limited to only collecting data from social media websites and apps which have become household names — and some of which are no longer widely used — and does not reference data from platforms which are currently on the rise. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges faced by industry experts today is managing to stay on top of trends, rather than merely reporting them after they have already risen and fallen.