Boom! Shake the Room. Seniors Are Engaging in Online Activities

Did you get a sneak peak at that early bird buffet? There was
a run on pigs in a blanket. What they’re not running out on, though, is
customized web sites for the older set. For example, witness the new launch of Personal Life Media, which is a
site that focuses on issues related to baby boomers, “ranging
from life coaching to green living to sex.” Oh wow. I didn’t just say that. Take a moment
to recover.

The
question we’re focusing on here in part two of the very exciting three part
series – I have a friend who insists that the best things come in fours, but I
can’t please him on this one – is not whether or not the boomers represent an
important demographic for marketers (they do) but where to find them. What are
these folks up to?

See
here for a handy chart, provided by eMarketer, about online activities of
seniors.

We
find that first and foremost they’re going online to conduct research to make
purchasing decisions. Advertisers seem to think that seniors are still
referring to the 1955 World Book Encyclopedia when
in fact they are going online. Of course, I can’t imagine my
grandmother checking out CNET product reviews of a new cell phone before
buying it. (My argument is somewhat damaged by the fact that she doesn’t
currently own a cell phone, and if she was going to buy one, she would just get
whatever her kids told her to, or, in her hipper moments, go for whatever comes
in hot pink.)

Recommendations are dictating much of their buying decisions. Second on the tier of how seniors spend
their time online is to purchase products or services recommended by others,
and I’m not talking about their kids. Anyone who has ever witnessed a group of
elderly women kickin’ it on a park bench off of Flatbush Avenue knows that there is nothing passive about
their communication. It’s all, “Mabel, you simply have to try this new dish
soap.” or “When are you going to introduce your Jimmy to my Kathryn? They’d be
so perfect together.” It’s the former that we’re interested in. According to the
study by Weber
Shandwick, the majority of baby boomers get asked for recommendations on
products and services about 90 times every year, and nearly all (89%) of those
“trusted sources of information” bestowed the advice to their peers.

"When
it comes to word-of-mouth recommendations, boomers have both unrivaled
influence and rich networks of peer advisors," said Dr. Leslie
Gaines-Ross. Seeing as how most boomers are not 100% comfortable or savvy with
online networks, most of it is being done in person, or on the phone. So, maybe
the key is to
provide enough information online to fuel an offline word-of-mouth campaign.

Though I said that the seniors are not exactly taking over
MySpace, there is a movement now towards online communities. So says Mary Furlong,
president and CEO of a baby-boomer-centric firm, who founded SeniorNet and
ThirdAge Media. "A lot of the dissonances of aging
aren’t fun," she notes, which is why faceless discussions of potentially
embarrassing topics are becoming popular. "Nobody wants to talk about a
prostate condition at lunch.”

Agreed.

Another fact of life is that as the
senior generation gets older, they’re going to experience more limitations on
their physical abilities and personal interactions that many of them enjoy now.
I think that those who have begun to embrace the Internet and the amount of
activities they can engage in – just think! you can do crossword puzzles, check
the weather, and even check what your son-in-law is doing on Twitter, all at the same time! and it’s
free! – are going to be more and more enthusiastic about the Internet. And then
maybe they’ll tell all their friends, and their friends’ friends, and next thing you know, you’ll have a
revolution on your hands. Seniors unite!

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