Marketing specialists were saying it at least three years ago. Blogs are changing the way we do business. Or at least the way we get business, and isn’t that the rub?

Two things. They were right. And little, little do they know.

Never mind the statistics that show us the weight of blogs arriving by the second, bloating the clouds of cyberspace with blither. The fact that anyone can blog, easily and for free, serves up this glorious glut even while it provides marketers with the dream: Friend-to-friend word-of-mouth recommendations, just like in real life. Nothing touches the power of my girlfriends telling me something works, or someone’s worthy of my attention / money.

A dying prototype
Witness the slick coat of desperation in today’s advertising. If there’s a trend, it’s the all-over-the-map trend. It’s the we’ll-try-anything trend. I watch them roll out the tired tactics in the latest woolen package. I imagine the board room, the jaded optimists cutting and pasting culture into PowerPoint, the quotations on their long-dry coffee cups mocking them as the hours drain into morning. How about a calico ribbon in her hair? Just the ridge of bosom showing? A puppy? Just the hand, no, just the fingers, the tips of the fingers, how old is our buyer again?

Older than you think, and still buying.

The conversation
That weight of blogs is the breath between friends. Cyberfriends work, too, if they’re real. If they keep showing up, talk straight, and don’t pull the rug out by slapping up a bunch of flashy ads. A trusted blogger can sell anything – anything that’s appropriate to the readers who trust her. That’s why they trust her. Get it?

As Boomers start to show up in the Blogosphere (permit me this vernacular), they are – I mean we are – going to talk. We’re bound to talk, you see, and this is where the conversation turns rich. Boomers are online, relaxing into Web 55.0, looking around and talking and buying. Any idea what percentage of the potential Boomer population is actually participating yet? (I’m going to take a wild, yes, insane guess, and say about 0.01%.) This is the edge, the little porch where we open the door to each other. Just wait ’til we get going!

I have an idea. How about you brilliant, statisticated marketers (yeah you – the ones saying “Boomers will buy the experience”) figure out a way to seduce a whole lot more Boomers into the conversation? You have everything to gain. And so do we.

Suzanna
Photo credit to Bee