The chart (below) shows the visit share by age for the big four social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. And the age breakdown of the (US?) online population.

As eMarketer has noted, “The average age of Internet users is rising in tandem with that of the general population.” It appears so far Facebook is the online social network that most closely mirrors the age diversity of our offline world. Twitter continues to appeal to GenX and GenY. And LinkedIn continues to be an excellent if underappreciated network for reaching 55+ adults – 57% of users are baby boomers or beyond!

I was surprised to see Google+ have a larger audience over the age of 55 than Twitter, but on second thought its design and functionality is so similar to Facebook, it might feel more comfortable to older users.

Stat #8 wasn’t a surprise to us. As Dougherty writes, “Facebook” is the most searched term in the US and Facebook-related terms account for 14% of the top search clicks.” We shared that insight with a team of social media marketing ambassadors from a leading continuing care retirement community just two days ago. It was terrific to see their excitement for how the network could promote deeper relationships with their senior prospects and adult children.

If your organization needs help turning social media stats into social media strategies, please check out these related posts (or give us a call – we’d love to help).

RELATED POSTS:

• The Face(book) in the Mirror is Getting Older
• Can Twitter Drive Sales with Older Generations?
• Mature, Affluent, Educated and LinkedIn
• Gaining Boomer and Senior Marketing Insights from Social Media

TOP TWEETS THIS WEEK

1. Statistics on Social Media Use by Baby Boomers, Seniors and Gen X – all three age groups share a love for email and a growing use of social networks http://bit.ly/qjkPwX

2. Red, White, and Gray: The High Cost, and High Rewards, of Longer Lives – an article from The Atlantic which considers whether “a grayer society is a richer society” http://ow.ly/88Qfa

And a tweet that should have gotten more attention: Ways to use Social Media to build a loyal customer base http://bit.ly/t4rf69. I appreciated how the blogger included thoughts from Pervara Kapadia on how you can use social media to create feelings of privilege and belonging (very motivating with baby boomers). Kapadia summarized as:

• This could be done by giving them great discounts and sales information.
• You could let them have the first peek at new products being offered.
• Let them be the first to know what is taking place behind the scenes.
• If there is a new announcement that you will be coming out with, let your Community know first.

• Encourage customers to speak and to share.
• Let them know that they are a part of your Family.
• Let them share their experience with your product.
• Appreciate a good comment. Make it a point to address a negative remark.”

Are you using social media to create feelings of belonging or privilege in your baby boomer and senior audiences? Share your thoughts and examples in the comments below.

By far the most shared post was Gaining Boomer and Senior Marketing Insights from Social Media. Find out what messages/strategies are hitting (or missing) the mark. Todd Harff recaps a number of resources that can be extremely helpful in determining and leveraging boomer and senior social preferences and behaviors, including  LinkedIn’s which allows you to see what is generating the most interest segmented by industry or group.

Other Top Tweets:

1. Santa’s Senior Secrets- An infographic chock full of not only holiday cheer but stats on seniors the world over.

2.  Baby Boomer social media revolution: More and more boomers flock to sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  How will you reach them?

3. Seven reasons direct mail and print remain effective marketing tools.

4. Interesting article via @AllThingsAging examining the rise of Ethnogeriatrics within diverse communities.

 (For a version which is larger/printable/easy to share, click on the image.)

As always, we feel feedback from our readers is a great gift. Please share your thoughts on this infographic in the comments section. And, HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Creating Results!

What doesn’t seem to vary is the struggle to act on or measure what your brand gains from social media. As eMarketer notes:

From the early days of the internet, the prospect of detailed metrics fueled the promise that online advertising could yield unprecedented insights about customer preferences and behavior. That promise has only partially materialized. True, online channels provide feedback that offline media cannot, but marketers are still grappling with how to make this input work toward the bottom line.

From my presentation to the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) last week, here are tools and tips that can help marketers spot and make sense of customer preferences and behavior.

We’ve focused on resources that are built-in or free, and are accessible to organizations like our clients – continuing care retirement communities, estate planners and 50+ housing developers with a lot of heart but little budgets.

Free Social Media Tools You Should Be Using

1. FACEBOOK:

* Facebook Insights: built-in and free, this tool helps you analyze your brand’s page metrics.

- Find out which messages hit (and which miss) their mature marks through “people talking about” and noting which posts attract the most engagement.

- Demographics and locations reported by Facebook also offer (free) insights. We discovered one client’s site was attracting more adult children than prospects themselves. And for another, we found that Friends were quirkier than we thought – one report showed a healthy portion of fans used Facebook with the language set to Pirate. Now our posts contain more humor and get more engagement than before.

* Facebook search: type your brand name into the search bar and then, on the results page, click on Public Posts. As Search Engine Journal put it, “what you’re left with is real time results for wall posts from all (public) profiles or pages on Facebook!”

2. TWITTER:

* TwitterCounter: track follower growth – yours or a competitor’s – for free on a weekly or monthly basis. Upgrade and you can see who is retweeting or sharing your tweets.

* Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Argyle Social, TweetAdder and Co-Tweet are tools for managing your Twitter account. All offer varying degrees of monitoring as well. Our personal favorite is HootSuite. You can track clicks and shares, and set up searches for key phrases (your brand name, your brand plus words such as LIKE, LOVE or HATE). Reports can even be exported and shared, a time-saving feature for smaller organizations.

* Twilert: Baby boomer blogger Linda Bernstein swears by this service, which delivers a regular email update with tweets containing keywords related to your brand, product or service.

3. LINKEDIN:

* Company page Analytics: see at a glance the interest your brand is generating and what kind of traffic, segmented by industry or other selects.

* Group Statistics: visualize your group members by seniority, function, location and industry.

4. SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING:

* There are a number of paid social media monitoring services out there, including Trackur, Radian6, sysomos, Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Alterian. You might first want to read a few comparisons (like this one from FreshMinds) to see what the strengths of each system is.

* A FREE and easy tool is Social Mention: Per MarketingSherpa’s Adam Sutton,

“… more than 80% of marketers say measuring brand sentiment is important, yet fewer than half actually track it. You can start gauging sentiment today by spending two minutes playing with Social Mention.

This fantastically simple and free tool provides a stunning amount of data, including a sentiment analysis of your online mentions. You can even click “positive” and “negative” to see a list of results used to generate your score. How cool is that?”

Very cool indeed.

What tool do you feel is cool for marketers focused on baby boomers and seniors? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

RELATED POSTS

* Nationally, the over 45 population has grown 18x more than the under 45 population. We can thank the Baby Boomer s (born 1946-1964) for this. As they have shifted into middle age, so has America.

* The median age in each of the 50 states has gone up. The increase in median age is most notable in the Northeast, where the average person has gone from 34 years old to 39.2 years old. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut now rank among the oldest states – hello, New England! West Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania round out the top 7.

* Texas, the Southeast and the Intermountain West have moderated the effects of the aging population thanks to immigration and migration of young adults attracted by healthy, diversified economies.

* The Sunbelt has seen the biggest growth in its over 65 population, and the senior population is growing in states not typically associated with retirement.  As Frey put it, “Areas that show growth in these seniors, due both to ‘aging in place’ and migration, are likely to benefit from their above-average economic attributes.”

* And, there is a “senior explosion in the waiting” in areas – again, the Sunbelt – where Baby boomers attracted by weather, knowledge-based economies and college towns have been moving in the past decades.

* When the Baby Boomers were actual babies, they were likely suburban babies. These were the areas where young families bloomed.  When they had their own families, they raised them in the suburbs.  And now, they age in place.  Fully 40% of the suburban population is over 45.

What do you think these statistics mean –for marketing, for health care, for your business?  Are you adjusting your plans based on these population trends?  Please share your thoughts below.

1. Do you struggle getting your 80-pound lab into the car when he/she knows where that car is headed? Imagine if you were an 80-year-old like my mother-in-law who always had a big black lab up until her death at 82. None of them were that well-behaved and, thinking about it, I still can’t figure out how she managed to get them to her vet.  As a senior, she would have truly valued a vet who made house calls. And she would have been a big source of referrals.  Heck, I’ve just written an entire blog post about my vet! Talk about great word of mouth marketing.
   

   Ebony, after a grooming (wish the groomers made house calls!)

2. Do you work during the day? More of us do:  60% of those between 55 and 64 years old are working full time; 30% of those between the ages of 65 and 69 are working.  That means our work hours are the same as those of most veterinarians making it tricky to schedule an appointment, particularly if it is an emergency (don’t think of the bill-we’ve all been there). House call vet to the rescue!
3. What happens when your beloved dog or cat is sick, and so are you? Like most pet lovers, you would even be more anxious to get your dog or cat in for medical attention than taking care of yourself. But the thought of sitting in the vet’s waiting room with a bunch of whimpering dogs when you feel as sick as a dog … Again, house call vet to the rescue!
4. Does a trip to the veterinarian makes your pet so nervous they vibrate the floor or get physically ill?  Your dog or cat would be more relaxed if his or her vet came into their domain.  Baby Boomers are most likely to pay for the privilege of a home visit – anything to avoid feeling like a bad Mom or Dad.  As the American Veterinary Medical Association put it way back in 2000, “it appears the boomer generation and those generations hence are more willing than ever to spend their money on products and services, including veterinary care.”

So, this really is a brilliant business move by my vet, the Herndon (VA) Animal Medical Center. I’m impressed that she recognized the potential of the older market.  And that she understood there were too-busy Boomers and other mature consumers who may have difficulty bringing their pets in. Who doesn’t love the convenience of house calls?

Related posts: 

* Come! (Good Baby Boomer) - Lessons from a dog for Baby Boomer Marketing

* Marketing to Boomers, Seniors … and SWELs? - Functional foods are being developed for aging boomers, seniors and pets

Now, 65-year-olds are younger than ever and 100-year-olds aren’t as rare as they once were. There are an estimated 72,000 centenarians in the United States today and there could be as many as a million by 2050.  As the Stanford Center on Longevity puts it in the New Realities of an Older America:

In less than one century, life expectancy has increased an average of 30 years in developed regions of the world. This added longevity is, at once, among the most remarkable achievements in all human history and one of our greatest challenges. More and more Americans are reaching old age, and older Americans are making up a larger share of our total population.

Here are some ideas on what the longevity revolution means for those who are marketing to Baby Boomers and beyond:

• Stanford Center’s excellent report notes that “the number of old people – age 65 and over – will double over the next 30 years.” The description of anyone over 65 as OLD conflicts with the way Baby Boomers and Silent Generation members see themselves. How could they be old when Boomers are launching businesses in record numbers? Their neighbors are getting re-married at 82? Or taking Hollywood by storm at 89, like Betty White?

• If you’re pitching your product or service with a message of “perfect for your last years,” those last years will last longer than ever. What’s your guarantee? Older consumers will want assurance they’re making the right choice.

• Many marketers are focusing on what Boomers will inherit but for many, that ship won’t come in for another 10-20 years. Until then, Boomers will be spending their time & money on maintaining their own lifestyle and health, as well as caring for older parents/family members.

Marketers should take a cue from their Baby Boomer targets and adjust their timeframe. You must build brand relationships with Baby Boomers that last longer than a Presidents Weekend special. Work towards your monthly sales goals but don’t discount long leads – invest in those relationships and give them time to pay off.

Boomers are in it for the long haul, and your organization needs to be as well.

(Now, say goodnight, Gracie.)

Activities Dominated by Millennials

Pew found that Gen Y/Millennials aged 18-33 are much more likely to use instant messaging, watch a video, or play online games.  While larger numbers of older Americans are joining online social networks, they still lag their grandkids/great grandkids in this activity.  Social network sites are used by:

* 16% of Greatest Generation (74+)
* 34% of Silent Generation seniors (65-73 years old)
* 43% of older Baby Boomers (56-64)
* 50% of younger Boomers (aka Generation Jones, 46-55)
* 62% of Gen X (34-45)
* 83% of Gen Y/Millennials

Use of the Internet itself is an area where older cohorts still lag.  79% of all Americans go online, states Pew, yet younger folks are overrepresented in a census of Web citizenry.

Chart: Pew Internet & American Life Project, Generations 2010

Online Activities Where Older (Gen X, Boomers & matures) Dominate

Pew found only 2 areas where older cohorts are more likely than Millennials to be active:  visiting government websites and getting financial information online.  Consistent with lifestage, Baby Boomers and Silent Generation seniors are spending the most time seeking out financial information, including mortgage rates, stock quotes and advice to help them plan for retirement or make the best of un-retirement.

Everybody Loves Email

As Pew puts it, the bulk of online activities are now more consistently popular across the age groups.  Some have significant differences between the oldest cohort (Greatest Generation) and the youngest (teens & Millennial) generations – if they didn’t, THAT would be a headline!

For marketers feeling the pressure to put dollars into social media, if you’re targeting Boomers and beyond, remember that email is used by nearly 9 in 10 of all people over 50.  Email is the most popular of all online activities regardless of age:

* 88% of 74+ers
* 90% of the Silent Generation
* 93% of older Boomers
* 91% of younger Boomers
* 94% of Gen X
* 96% of Millennials

Now that Pew has detailed what online activities Boomers and seniors are pursuing, how do you apply these statistics to your marketing program?

In January 2011, Creating Results will release findings from our proprietary, national survey of mature consumers that could offer some answers.  More than 400 consumers over 40 answered questions about web preferences – pet peeves, favorite features & more – and attitudes toward social media.

And we went “beyond the numbers,” inviting 40+ Americans to share their opinions in their own words.  There also are specific take-aways for those marketing housing to Boomers and seniors.

To be first to receive the full findings of “Social, Silver Surfers,” please register here:  http://www.creatingresults.com/silver_social_surfers/.

“Millennials have a way of driving older folks crazy … Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers find this generation puzzling, and rather than strive to understand the differences, instead are inclined to view them negatively.  It’s as if they were visiting a foreign country, and instead of trying to understand the culture, they respond with, ‘Eww, look at them, can you believe it??!’

… Millennials meet the definition of a subculture. Data and experience both show that Millennials look at many things — work, food, religion, politics, fashion and more —  differently.”

Phillips calls for all to suspend judgment and truly get to know their targets – good advice whether you’re marketing to a 50-something Baby Boomer or a 70-something senior or a 20-something Millennial. 

As a marketing  professional who specializes in the language, customs and drivers of Baby Boomers and other older generations, I’d venture pretty much every young cohort has a way of driving the older generations crazy.

* The “Silent Generation” (born roughly between 1925 and 1945) got its moniker from a Time cover story.  The reporter (from an older cohort) sure sounded frustrated with the kids of his day.  He bemoaned their lack of activism and reported that “the girls want a career – and marriage.”

* Baby Boomers (1946-1964) drove their elders crazy with their hairstyles, clothing, protests, drugs and more.  Heck, “Bye Bye Birdie” was all about a (musical) generational culture gap.

* The nickname for Gen X (born roughly between 1965 and 1945) was popularized by yet another magazine article.  At the time, the other name being used for this cohort of stand-for-nothing underachievers was the “Postponed Generation” because young adults kept moving back home.

Phillips wraps up her fine post by saying “It’s not better or worse, it’s just different.” 

In my view it’s not better or worse, but quite familiar!