Lollipop Local

Going back to my posts about Social Media and The Archers, it was interesting to read research from UK based PR agency Umpf that more than half the nation’s pensionable population currently uses Facebook.

Thinking about the over 65s within my own sphere, however, the majority use Facebook as a vehicle to keep in touch with friends and family and to share photos. Again, reflecting on the pensioners that I know, I can confirm that YouTube is also very popular and I am not surprised that an extrapolation of the statistics showed more than a third of them regularly view video clips.

Even though Twitter announced on September 8th that their active user tally has now passed 100 million, my own experience has been that it is a medium whose purpose just does not fit with the mindset of that older generation. Shouting 140 characters into the ether every half an hour for anyone to hear is totally alien to their upbringing.

The whole ‘not making a public show of yourself’ attitude of this age group is one of the reasons that businesses with customer bases comprising mainly older clients have been very resistant to the possibilities of social media, especially if the owners do not use the platforms themselves.

So, it was great to hear Pip Archer proclaiming its virtues on a programme which is regularly listened to by members of that generation. Many small local business owners are over 55 but do not know how to use the current technologies to reach their own age group and they are afraid of being hoodwinked by some of the young whippersnappers who come trying to push them into paid online advertisements. With nothing to sell herself, Pip delivered a message that could well have reached many who had previously not been aware of the marketing opportunities it can provide.

However, it is becoming clear that social media is not going to go away but is growing rapidly, especially in this age group and the one below, who are starting to become more open to new-fangled ideas and technologies when it comes to communicating easily with loved ones and saving money to preserve their pensions.

And if we look at the age-group below them, the ones who are coming up to retirement, appealling to that viewpoint is going to become ever more important when designing an effective social media strategy.

Originally posted 2011-09-18 11:28:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2012 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Facebook, Social Media, Social Media For Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.