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Boomers buzz differently on social networks
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Baby boomers use social networks differently than millennials.
Image courtesy of theage.com.au
In a recent contribution to MediaPost's Online Spin newsletter, Joe Marchese, president of socialvibe said, "people are the medium." He suggests the explosion in social media usage has made people a channel through which marketers can distribute a message. Of course word-of-mouth advertising has always been marketers' holy grail. The challenge has always been how to create and manage the conversation. Now, some social media sites are targeting selected demographics to help do that.
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Boomster.com is tailored to boomers social media preferences.
Image courtesy of boomster.com
LinkedIn might currently be the most familiar of these targeted social media sites. Another recent entry is Boomster.com. Founded by Dr. Gail Ross, a Harvard Ph.D and Steve Campus, President of the Campus Group companies, Boomster is targeted at the Baby Boomer demographic and tailored specifically to address the way boomers want to "buzz" on social networks.
"Boomers have tried MySpace, Facebook and other general interest social networking sites," said Steve Campus. "But they're not interested in sharing their minute-by-minute thoughts and activities on a 'wall.' And as a group, they're not really interested in creating content for others to see and comment on."
As a result, Boomster research suggests that the 45-plus demographic is either not fully participating in the social media scene, or is leaving it. According to Campus, "Our research suggests that boomers want to do three basic things on the Internet. They want to find information that's relevant to what they're doing today and would like to do tomorrow, they want to be able to discuss and test that information with their peers, and they want to be able to shop selected products and services from reputable providers. Boomster is designed specifically for them to be able to do that."
Taking offline behaviors online
This month, Boomster is also planning to launch an interactive web-TV feature called Boomster Live. It will enable users to talk with subject matter experts in various interest areas. "Boomster Live is a new way to provide information and start a conversation about it," said Campus. "We'll feature an interview setting with call-in and e-mail capability for viewers to quiz our subject matter expert in real time." Potential subjects are targeted at boomer interests such as, technology, pet care, music, business, travel and wine.
"Our overall concept is to find ways to take offline behaviors like shopping, book reading, wine tasting, travel and so on, and bring them into the online space for sharing through a social media application," said Campus. "By doing so, we think we can take advantage of the current interest in social networking and provide a platform that will not only engage boomers, but also offer marketers a targeted and affluent demographic that is pre-disposed to shop online."
Could sites like Boomster be the future of social media?
If Marchese is right about the people being the medium, sites like Boomster could be the future of social media. Nielsen Online just released a report that found "total minutes on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009 ..."
As more and more people spend time on social media and get more familiar with the platforms, it will be natural for them to segment around preferred ways to use the media. Instead of everyone belonging to Facebook and trying to use it for everything, it's entirely possible that we'll all be members of three or four different "clubs" in which we talk about different subjects in different ways. And as always, it will be up to forward-thinking marketers to determine how to engage in those conversations and get the most out of its new "medium" to deliver a message.
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