Recently I was speaking with the president of a company that I had had a fairly lengthy dialogue with about becoming a client and really investing in his web presence with a new and better site with increased SEO and expanded capabilities. He had ultimately signed on and I couldn't help but ask him what made him take the plunge and his response was very interesting.
His company actually falls into the catagory of having 2 separate divisions, one that sold to consumers and one that sold to other businesses. He was on a job site and the woman who had hired his crew happened be roughly in her 80s and he asked her how she had found them, and she replied that she used the internet. Somewhat surprised by her answer he pressed a bit, and said, "You mean you don't use the phone book?" The woman looked at him and without missing a beat responded, "Honey, I haven't used a phone book in years!" At that moment he knew that it was time to really get serious about investing in the future of his company through his website.
It's a common myth that the younger generations are the only ones actively and consistently using the internet in their everyday lives for everything from shopping and business, to entertainment and social connection. Certainly this new group of "post-millenials" have the internet increasingly becoming a part of their DNA, to the point where they are being called, in some circles, the "iGeneration". What is being proven false year after year is the assumption that those on the AARP roll calls are uninterested in, or even adverse to, using the web for all kinds of daily needs.
In November of 2009, the number one destination for people age 65+ was Google with over 10 million hits that month, and ranked 3rd, up from 45th place just one year prior, was Facebook with almost 8 million hits in one month! In fact one article I read recently said that the number of social media site users age 65+ has grown 53% in the last two years, and to blow the myth out of the water even more is the statistic that of the total number of social media users surveyed in the article I mentioned above there was only 0.1 percentage points seperating the number of seniors as opposed to the number of teenagers using those sites.
Where the web is concerned the gap between the age groups of users is rapidly disappearing, when it comes to internet surfing it appears everyone is starting ride the wave.
From where you are to where you want to be,
Doug
