We naturally think of social media as the province of the young and hip. Our stereotypical image of a new-media-savvy person is young, spectacled, and nerdy, clad in sneakers and T-shirt, with a tattoo or three and an occasional piercing, slurping Red Bulls and munching junk snacks while hiding his lingering acne. Older people, we assume, lack the technological awareness and sophistication necessary to use social media and, their neural circuits having fossilized in the electronic Stone Age, and their ability to learn new tricks suffering from the drawbacks proverbially applying to old dogs. According to an article in MediaBadger, we would in many cases and ways be wrong, and those wanting to market to seniors should not ignore social media.

Here are some of the findings from the study:

• The first users of the Internet back in the 1990s were in their 40s and older. That’s primarily because the cost of computers in those days was much higher than it is today, and there were no portable options, so older people with higher and more stable incomes were the ones likely to be using it. Those same early Internet users have graduated to social media as they have emerged into being.
• The reasons why seniors (or “silver surfers” as the study quaintly terms them) engage in social media may be slightly different than for younger users. The biggest single reason is to stay in touch with friends and family, followed by pursuit of hobbies, with services, vacationing, and shopping filling the next three categories. Seniors still tend to be less trusting than younger people of online shopping and banking.
• A study of which social media outlets are used by age group shows that seniors are more likely to use Facebook, on-line forums, and photo sharing services than they are other outlets. Seniors are less likely than younger people to post videos on YouTube and similar outlets, but quite likely to view on-line videos.
• Seniors are late adopters of changing social media and less likely than younger people to learn new media that are difficult or complex. They quickly develop habits of use (or already have them by now) and are resistant to change. They love to comment online about current events, politics, or most other subjects and tend to have strong opinions. Then tend to prefer simple and easy to learn tools that interface easily with services and methods they are already used to using.

There are, in short, many differences between older social media users and younger ones. Just the same, this is not a demographic that Facebook marketers should ignore, nor are social media something that should be ignored by companies that routinely serve an older clientele.

While seniors are becoming more internet savvy, they are still at risk for online scams.  If you are a senior citizen or have a family member who is, a background check for all new friend requests may be a good idea.

Looking for places to market your products or services? While Facebook is the clear leader in targeting and reach, be sure not to overlook additional social networking sites such as Twitter and YouTube!

Just what is a social networking site and how can it help you?

It is a place on the Web where people of all ages go to chat with friends, interact with associates, or just browse. Such sites can be used to interact with people in all fields of interest, but they seem to be a particular lure for young people.

It’s not hard to see how a social networking site can help to market an online business. If your business were offline, you would want to place your ads in areas where the greatest number of people could see them, such as in a shopping mall. Simple put, a social networking site is a lot like a mall.

Social networking sites appeal particularly to young people and those with plenty of disposable income. This is probably the reason why bands and other entertainers have such a strong presence on the social networks. Authors, software developers, game makers, really, people from any industry can be found there. If you want to reach a target audience, you will go where the people are. After all, Twitter has 200 million members as of this writing and Facebook has 600 million. Those numbers are nothing to sneeze at!

The right way and a wrong way to utilize the social networking websites.

Like other places on the Internet, neither users nor administrators like those who go around blatantly advertising their businesses on the social websites. This is not to say that you cannot advertise your business on Facebook, but you should remember that the site has an advertising program and you will have to pay for the privilege.

There are free ways to advertise on the social websites, but you must go about it in the right way. This means adding value and interesting content to your own page, as well as spending plenty of time interacting with others so that they are motivated to see what you have to offer.

Mac Tools to manage multiple social networking sites

There are programs for Mac that can help with this, and some applications work with more than one social network.

1. Facebook Desktop from Bit Per Second – A browser-based application that provides an alternative way of accessing both Facebook and Twitter that some users may find more convenient.
2. Seesmic – One of the more popular tools that allows you to manage multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts.
3. Socialite From Apparent Software – Provides an attractive interface for accessing Digg, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds.
4. Yoono Desktop - Similar to Socialite, Yoono Desktop, which has a version for Mac, Windows and Linux and also allows connection with multiple social networks.
5. RockMelt – A browser for Windows, Mac, Linux and the iPhone that also has social networking capabilities built in. It is the defacto successor to the Flock browser (which recently announced its end of support).

No matter how you participate, if you want to market your business, you will want to go where the people are, and nothing fits that description better than social networking websites.

Tim Arends authors Internet Mac Marketing where he offers a FREE 75-page ebook that covers everything you need to know about running your Internet business using a Mac, iPhone and iPad.

As of March 10th, all Facebook pages have received an updated layout and several new features to help you engage with your fans. Here are some of the Facebook page upgrades:

• Notifications when fans interact with your page or posts
• A place to showcase photos along the top of your page
• A news feed for your page
• The ability to Like and post on other pages as your page

The transition guide below will help you understand the changes in more detail and help businesses and brand managers get a stronger grasp on the potential for Facebook Pages following the redesign.

Here are is a fan Page upgrade checklist for anyone who already has a Facebook Page:

1. The Page profile picture size has changed. Be sure to review your profile picture and upload a re-sized picture if needed.
2. An optional feature will now allow you to feature other Pages and Page admins. If you have any cross-promotion to do this is a great opportunity to take advantage of!
3. This is also a great time to review your Page category. You can update this at any time by visiting Edit Page > Basic Information > Category
4. Review the five thumbnail photos that are now displayed in the “photostrip”. X-out any photos you do not want to appear in the top right of each thumbnail and tag your Page in the photos to center the thumbnail picture.

Feel free to download the Facebook Page Transition Guide!

I stumbled across this Facebook reporting guide for those who are interested in running Facebook ads, or already are! It’s called “Facebook Online Campaign Reports: Product Guide for Brand Advertisers”.

Since it was created earlier this year, I’m sure there’s some content that could be outdated – i.e. like vs. fan. That said, it is still worth the read to learn more about the reporting features available to Facebook advertisers.

You can view the report below or download a copy of the Facebook report for yourself.

Nielsen User Study

Nielsen’s recently released study paints U.S. broadband users as “going social, and checking out Web videos.”

Consider this, 56% of active U.S. Web users spend on average 6 hours on Facebook per month. Even more interesting, Facebook is the third-most-visited site by users 65 years and older. All in all, the total time Americans spent on social networking sites in 2009 increased a staggering 277%!

Here are a couple additional thoughts from Nielsen’s study. The average U.S. worker spends five hours per month browsing social networks from the office. Nielsen also found that 32% of all mobile Web users visited a social network in 2009 – I definitely count myself in that percentage!

How about you? What percentile do you fall into?

Myspace Video Plummets

Video consumption online has exploded in the U.S. and has only been further increased with the emergence of Hulu and others. Ironically, for entertainment-heavy and Facebook competitor, MySpace, unique views and videos served have declined sharply.

Consider these stats depicting the monumental growth in video consumption in the U.S. in November 2009. According to Comscore, 170.6 million U.S. residents watched almost 31 billion videos, an average of 182 videos per person. That’s a big increase from 146 million unique viewers and 12.7 billion videos, an average of  87 videos per viewer, in November 2008.

MySpace, admittingly, is more noted for their strong focus on recording artists and entertainment in general, pointed out that, despite declines in unique viewers and videos watched, on a per user basis, its online video engagement is up.

In an e-mailed statement, Myspace  said:

“Our user engagement numbers for video were higher than ever — highly engaged users are staying on MySpace and watching more videos.”

That said, there is no denying the fact that the overall trend in the U.S. is an increase in both unique viewers and in videos watched, not a decrease.

What are your thoughts? Is this yet another sign of the ‘end’ as we know it for Myspace? Leave your thoughts in the comments!