Nick Cifuentes

According to a new report from Forrester Research, social media isn’t just for kids any longer. The new report notes that more than 60 percent of baby boomers are actually engaged in social media channels, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums.

In 2007, the percentage of baby boomers consuming this media was at 46% for people ages 43 to 52, and 39% for people ages 53 to 63. By 2008, the number increased in a massive way, 67% and 62% respectively.

In addition, the number of baby boomers responding to content posted online increased as well. For the younger boomers, responding to content doubled from 15% in 2007 to 34% in 2008. According to Forrester, this is now at a percentage that’s high enough to target this group with social media applications and content.

When it comes to joining social networks, the activity has widely increased among baby boomers as well. Today, almost one in four of the younger boomers are actively engaged in social networks, up from 15% in 2007.

The one aspect of social media that is up, but not at a significant increase when compared to the other activities, is the aspect of actually creating content. Besides updating their online profiles and leaving blog comments, the baby boomers are still not heavily involved in writing blog articles or creating videos and posting them online. In 2008, 16% of younger boomers were involved in content creation (up from 12% in 2007) and 15% of older boomers (up from 8% in 2007). Both groups saw an increase, but it still remains the least popular activity online for baby boomers.

What Does this Mean?

According to Forrester’s suggestion - the best bet for getting baby boomers involved in your content is to create blogs or videos that relate to the life and/or work style of baby boomers. And creating these content channels without so many complex sign-up processes are most likely the smartest direction to take your ideas, as the numbers above show that baby boomer’s feedback is limited - so consider the sensitivity of your channel.

This research opens the door to start considering serious steps into creating social applications for this particular age group (ages 43 to 63). Although the group isn’t as active as the younger generations, their participation levels are now at a moderate level and increasing - very worth of a company to start to seriously consider marketing towards.

So when thinking about marketing to this age group, consider the social networks that many of the baby boomers now favor. Websites like Eons, BOOMj.com, TeeBeeDee, Classmates Online, and AARP’s new online community.

Fin.

“A picture is worth a 1000 words” is a well-known saying, and was coined to describe the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image. Images are crucial in today’s world, and more so in the presentation of ideas.

Images capture the essence of life, and without question, appeal to the emotions inside all of us. They make information more engaging and influential. An image can capture human emotions, uncensored reflections and a collection of beliefs that allows information to vocalize what message you are trying to convey.

Like videos, images can spread quickly and infect a population to the point where the message is no longer just an image with text, but more so an image with meaning. In turn, passing well beyond the ideals of human emotion and spreading the information virally into a person’s mind.

Visual representations, also known as infographics, are images that are created to attract attention and spread ideas. Similar to videos, images have the ability to be spread virally, and can capture an individual’s attention when they are presented cleanly and paired with text to present information.

The graphics are created to inform an audience, and construct a focused identity that supplements textual content. These infographics can stand alone on their own - acting as a presentation piece that explains a particular topic and acts as a citable reference.

Infographics have the ability to live on their own and can be spread virally to attract attention for almost any brand. When thinking about spreading information, consider an image weaved with information to create something ‘social’. Many B2B and B2C brands have trouble realizing how they can take advantage of the social space outside of the blogosphere and creating active social media profiles pages sometimes.

To take a look at some great examples of infographics here (courtesy of Princeton University)

Overdrive Interactive recently released an infographic in the form of a social media map that outlines the variances of the social web. The map is clean, concise, and acts as a clickable PDF - as it should because I helped make it…ha-ha. More importantly, it sits on a landing page designed with clickable chiclets that allows you to share the infographic directly on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Delicious. This, in turn, gives the ability for a person to ‘share’ the graphic with their community of friends, making your simple graphic, more than just a pretty picture to review. It makes it ALIVE and more importantly - VIRAL!

Now that you’ve seen some examples - think how your brand might be able to incorporate an infographic. Think of it two parts. First, consider the content you want to incorporate. And then, secondly, in what display method will this content work? Could your information sit within a rich display like the first examples above, or live within a less involved design, such as the second example?

Either way, think about your branding possibilities with something like this…are you in need of an inforgraphic?

Fin.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…