Boomer women and social media: It’s all about the context

As I’ve mentioned before, we still hear from marketers who ask, “Are Boomer Women actually online?” While that happens less than it used to, marketers still seem unwilling to believe that trends in social media apply to women over 50.

We recently analyzed some internal data at VibrantNation.com, and actually surprised ourselves at how active Boomer women are in social media. Marketers, take note!

The Groundswell Revolution and Boomers

If you have followed the Forrester Group’s ongoing research into social media interaction – best-known through its best-selling book, Groundswell, which provides a format for companies using social technologies like blogs and social forums to reach consumers.

I’ve written before about Groundswell’s consumer profile tool and how it might apply to Boomers.

If you review Forrester’s 2009 “Consumer Profile Tool,” you will find that 39% of women aged 45-54 (and 36% of women 55+) are “critics,” meaning that they contribute to online forums, comment on another’s blog, or post ratings/reviews of a product or service.

We now know these numbers are in fact much higher for Boomer women, who are now engaging in social media at levels underestimated even by those who specialize in this area.

What We Have Learned about Vibrant Boomer Women and Social Media Interaction

At VibrantNation.com, the leading online community for women 50+, we recently determined that 42% of our members are “critics” (to use the Groundswell term), a number considerably higher than Forrester attributes to national averages for all age groups.

Just to clarify, what does that number mean: At VibrantNation.com, 42% of our Boomer women members (in general they are aged 48-68; average age is 55) post either original comments or respond to others in one of our forums/threads.

How do we explain this, and what does it mean for social media marketing?

Context matters, for consumers and for marketers.

Vibrant Boomer women participate in conversations at VibrantNation.com at higher levels than anyone would have guessed because our site has become a safe place for them to do so. What does “safe” mean for Boomer women? It means a moderated site where they know they are surrounded by their peers. Our research has shown that <a href=”/stephen-reily-flash-forward/2009/04/28/vibrant-women-the-generation-that-markets-to-itself/”the most important influence on Boomer women is “other women like them,” and not surprisingly, they act differently when they are in each other’s company.

When women are in the company – and exclusively in the company – of other women like them, they are far more active than experts assume, and far more attractive to marketers.

In other fields this information would not be a surprise – surely video game marketers know that gamers are more engaged in sites about their favorite topic. And we all know that peer pressure is greater when you are actually surrounded by peers, and peers only.

But in a world where too many marketers still wonder if Boomers are active in social media, this statistic should get them appreciating context over impressions. They should be engaging the Boomer woman online, and they should understand the added value from engaging her on a site where she is surrounded by her peers.