Social Media is Grayer Than You Might Think

Social Media too, has many gray areas. Just not the gray you might think. We’re talking about gray hair here. In the research we’ve done for clients, we’ve found an increasing amount of social media usage by the 50+ demographic, and we expect this to increase.

With txt messaging being so common today, even the 35+ demographic has begun to broadly engage with txt messaging. Our research in Atlantic Canada and New England states has shown us that the average age of a Facebook participant (remember, we hate the term “user”) is 47 years old. We see that increasing as well.

So what does this mean? Why does business need to care? Because it means more of a wealthier market it increasingly engaging with social media. Added to this is then the challenge of how one engages with social media and the tools used. We’ve found that the older the demographic, the differences in the tools and how those tools are used, become quite significant.

Some traits of the 40+ demographic using social media are behaviours such as less personal information revealed, a tendency to write longer and read longer blog posts. More “intelligent” or deeper and longer discussions on topics of interest in Twitter or on blog posts. Older demographics tend to stay more loyal to platforms (i.e. Facebook, Netlog or Twitter) and only move to new platforms/services that have become a mainstay in the social mediasphere.

Understanding the age group you are targeting will significantly influence the communications strategy you engage in, the advertising you conduct and the services/tools that you can leverage. Sounds much like the real world doesn’t it? The difference is that in the real world, your communications and marketing are “broadcast” format, whereas in social media it becomes more of a conversation. And the 45+ demographic is very eloquent and persuasive in their discussions.

(Author: Giles Crouch, Principal)