The generational communication gap is becoming an abyss. With the proliferation of social media, texting and other technologies, young people today have all but nearly abandoned the communication technologies and norms that were popular as little as 10 years ago. (How many kids under the age of 20 use landline phones? Do they even know the origin of the word “dial”?)

So how are the financial and insurance industries keeping up? They’ve certainly tried to get into the game… by using social media to push out their messages. But are they effective? And is the Millennial generation willing to tolerate the same salesy messages in a different format?

Probably not.

Social technologies allude to fun, innovative ways to communicate and connect, not a sales pitch. That said, if the content is relevant, Millennials will engage with it all day long.

So how do insurance and financial earn a position in the "relevant category"?

At the very least, it starts with translation. Not from English to Spanish or from Spanish to Mandarin. But from insurance/financial speak to more concise, pointed messages — or to a language Millennials can or will want to understand. Doing that would be easier than trying to force a truly new generation with their own unique ways of communicating to understand the antiquated and confusing languages of the insurance and financial industries.

Once they have cleared that hurdle (no easy feat), the financial and insurance industries can start creating genuine interaction with Millennials by developing innovative content that feels real — or even better, content that is really relatable.

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