22 Mar Baby Boomer Technology Adoption Is On The Rise
According to a recent CNBC.com article, boomer technology is becoming a booming business.
The 55+ markets are adapting to new technology at a rapid rate. This includes smart phones, e-readers, and social media. Boomers adopt new technologies in large waves. They aren’t usually early adopters, so they begin to use new technology later than younger generations. This usually causes a large and sudden increase in boomer technology adoption, which is exactly what we are seeing. On a recent flight, I noted 40% of the over 50 crowd using Kindles.
The big stat in this article is that baby boomers will make up one-third of the U.S. population in 2010. To accompany that, they will outspend younger generations by $1 trillion this year.
It becomes obvious that this is a market that can’t be ignored. For the last few years, marketers have made the argument that these older consumers will not respond to new forms of digital marketing. The data from this article should change your mind.
According to Facebook, women 55 or over are the fastest growing demographic of the their network. This is a very powerful buyer in my opinion. How many times have we rationalized that social media cant reach older consumers? I hear it all the time and the above debunks this theory. And stats from our own client base prove too that the boomer generation loves social media.
The 55+ markets are obviously not the leading demographic when it comes to social networking, but there has been a massive adoption over the past 6 months. At this point, there is no reason to think that the adoption of new technologies by baby boomers will stop.
So what does this mean for developers and marketers?
I think it’s important that we consider the 55+ demographic when planning our social media strategies. According to the data in the article, skipping on this group digitally would be a mistake and the rationale of “older people don’t use Facebook” is no longer valid when it comes to marketing and addressing consumer outreach.
