Social Media for Boomers and up

Got on a flight last night from Boston to Florida for a long weekend, some r&r and maybe a little sun. First experience on JetBlue and with POPCORNERS great flight and great, yet unknown snack food.
Florida is the land of gators, the TV show COPS and America’s retirement community. With that and sound cloudy weather I had an epiphany. I spent most of the morning with Nana Betty we discussed the NY Times recent article about OnLive Plus, her Facebook account, Wi-Fi, the cloud and her daily lessons at the Genius bar at the local Apple store. Fairly normal conversation with my wife and friends but Nana was born in 1929. So that got me thinking, mostly every post, blog and tweet I read is aimed at youth or at least Gen X or Y, what about the Boomers and beyond? The great philosopher, John Capuano, tells me the importance of spending power of the Boomers. He talks about the size of that population and the liquidity of their wealth. So let’s take it one step further what is their impact on Social Media? Your Grandmother is not only looking at pics of her grandkids when she is on Facebook.
So who is focusing social media efforts on this huge segment of the population. In 2010 65+ accounted for almost 39 million people in the US, which is 12.8% of the entire US population.
There are a few:
eons – which calls itself an “online community for BOOMers”
AARP
My Boomer Place – focusing on the 50, 60 and 70+ year old traveler
Baby Boomer Headquarters – looks like a tourist shop for Boomers
But really, search the keywords “social media” and “baby boomers” or “retired” you won’t see much. Many of the articles are from ’07 and ’08. There were a few good posts from last fall; a good piece called “Pressed” from Portfoilio.com and a post on Marketing Conversation
The Boomers and up are basically a marketing after thought in the hi-tech, flashy, YOUNG world of Social Media, yet don’t tell them that because they are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as other sites with adolescent type vigor and reckless abandon. What are you doing the engage them through Social Media?
Well I need to go, it’s after 5p and I am late for the blue plate special (sarcasm).