Business, Baby Boomers, and Social Media

Let’s step into the world of a business owner who is a baby boomers that uses social media technologies to market their business. According to Jeremiah Owyang, he shared in the graph below that social technology use is on the rise by baby boomers.  The age groups on this graph for baby boomers have been broken down into two groups: younger boomers (ages 43 to 52) and older boomers (53 to 63).

Image: www.SXC.hu

As you can see, according to the graph, older boomers almost doubled in each area from 2007 to 2008 as they started incorporating social technology into their daily business. The only area that decreased were the Inactives (see the legend below for more details). What does all of this mean in today’s business environment and economy?

• Many major companies are starting to recognize that reaching this age backet now includes social websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
• Create an interactive way for baby boomers to be attracted to your website through the use of videos or audios.
• Incorporate marketing plans that reaches out to baby boomer online communities such as:
  • www.BoomJ.com: The name BOOMj derives from the two primary audiences we serve: the Baby Boomers Generation and Generation Jones - both born during the big 20-year, post-World War II boom in births from the mid-1940’s to mid-1960’s.
  • www.Senior.org: The Seniors Coalition is the nation’s leading free-market senior education and advocacy organization with a membership of more than 4 million seniors.
  • www.TBD.com: or TeeBeeDee is a social network that allows people at midlife to exchange information and experiences, learn from each other, and connect to like minded people. Membership is free.
  • www.AARP.org: is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50 and over improve the quality of their lives.

Each section is divided up into different types of Social Technology or Internet users as followers:

• Creators: those who are actual producers of web content or websites that interact with others via the Internet
• Critics: those who provide feedback regarding web content
• Collectors: those who gather information via the Internet
• Joiners: many who feel that uniting with others via social media is their way of connecting via the Internet
• Spectators: usually have limited interaction with others socially via the Internet
• Inactives: not actively interacting with others via the Internet.

Image: Flckr.com account for Jeremiah Owyang