For older folks it was just another fad, a passing cloud that would scud away and give way for more formal means of socialisation, but years down the line, social media simply can’t be wished away. For starters, a Pew Research Centre report says 65% of adults are now using social media and as a business owner, you need to leverage these numbers in digital marketing.
It is true younger users still dominate the social media platforms, but numbers from this study show a paradigm shift among senior citizens. According to the same study, while there was a 15% increase in social media usage among users aged 18 to 29 years old, there was a corresponding 218% increase in social media participation amongst users aged 65 years and above.
This changes your approach to mobile marketing, because your content now has to target a broader market. At the same time, it increases opportunities in B2B marketing as social media marketing can now form part of your broad marketing techniques. You will have to optimise your content to suit a broader spectrum of users thus making your business even more noticeable online.
Another key change in this phenomenon is the fact that male and female participation on social media has almost levelled out, with 68% of women and 63% of men using these platforms. Across the education divide, participation has increased both amongst school dropouts and those with college degrees. The adoption rate is higher among those with college education at 76% while for dropouts, the adoption rates are lower at 54%.
Well, there are myriad social media platforms and for your online marketing campaign to catch on, you need to know which ones to target. These include:
- Facebook: It is the ultimate social media platform and is ideal both for brand and product marketing. With over 968 million active users, it is ideal for customer-oriented products.
- Twitter: It is ideal to reach out to the millennial and Gen X crowd, as 23% of adults are on this platform and with the right strategy, it is a great way to earn visibility.
- Pinterest: 28% of adults use this platform especially women and it is ideal for businesses that lend themselves to images.
- LinkedIn: This is the most professional social media platform and can be used to recruit, reach out to the industry, generate consumer leads and generally build invaluable networks.
- YouTube: With over a billion users, it is the second most popular search engine in the world. The fact it is owned by Google means any content related to your keyword ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERPs). It is time to create that corporate video, isn’t it?
Whether you are formulating an email marketing campaign or mobile promotions, social media is the future of marketing. Welcome to the future.
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