Baby Boomers Stun Researchers By Stampeding To Social Media

In a way, it made me chuckle.  ”They” didn’t think we’d come, let alone almost overrun the place.

And as this video on a study released by the Pew Research Center on August 27, 2010 shows – we are EVERYWHERE in social media.  Imagine what this means to your business…..

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYDoPIduYOw

Just another example of the mistakes other generations make about the Baby Boomers.  We are unlike any other generation this planet has seen.  Aside from our sheer numbers (about 77 million), something about us has been different since Mr. Gerber got the brilliant (and very profitable for him) inspiration that it might be a good idea to figure out how to make feeding these millions of infants a little more convenient for their parents.

Small and home-based businesses cannot afford to overlook the power of the Internet and social media, and marketing experts have to drop their almost Biblical devotion to the adage that their primary target market is the 19 to 34 year olds.  Study after study shows the driving force in the economy has been and remains the generation born between 1946 and 1964.  The Baby Boomers have driven every economic trend since our births, and we continue to do so.  We have the greatest spending power, the greatest influence and we are the New Entrepreneurs (even if our hair is thinning out or turning gray).

The overwhelming majority of new small businesses started in the United States are created by folks aged 54 to 65.  And, in addition to brick and mortar – where are we?  On the Internet – and not just watching the news.

This is wonderful news for the Baby Boomer Entrepreneur – the people you want to meet, forge relationships with, and market to are online on social media where you can reach them and they can find you.  At the whopping cost of $0.  Whether you’re 19 or 85, if you are an entrepreneur you cannot afford to ignore this:  done properly, you can reach your market, millions of people.

I say “done properly” because the social media is flooded with desperate spammers begging people to buy and join – and they only end up irritating (mild choice of word) their listeners.

This new world of social media and online presence is all about building relationships – real relationships where you put the needs of the other first.  Offer quality content, help and a genuine chance to get to know you and then you might end up with a customer or business partner.  Offer yourself first, without expectation of return………no one gives a hoot what your comp plan is or what ingredients are in your products until they KNOW you.

This might be a digital age, but you cannot hide behind a computer – you are putting yourself out there.

As a Baby Boomer (and I’ve said this so many times), I simply love it.  Precisely because of those relationships and not solely because I am an online entrepreneur.  When we grow up (gasp, what a thought!) and no longer have the mobility to race around as we do now, we can continue to maintain those relationships daily.  The people we meet online today will be old friends 20 years from now, and who knows how far technology will have advanced.  Already, I can video call friends for free all over the world – meet their spouses, their dogs, get a tour of their house.  If the day finally does come when I can no longer “get up and go” – I can still “sit down and go” so long as I have a computer and an Internet connection.  It changes the entire picture of growing old – no dreary dreams of wasting away alone in a small apartment…….I can “visit” my friends from Moscow to Australia and never leave the couch.

And, if I want to, I can still be in business.

Tags: births, gerber, home based businesses, primary target, what this means