In social media, not only do women rule, but it seems that the middle-aged are Social Media’s largest share holders. New data from an Internet study of 19 social networks which found the age groups that dominate the social Web are 35-44 (Gen X, 58%), 17 and under (21%) and 45-45 (younger Baby Boomers, aka Gen Jones, 16%).
The 35-44 age group “dominates the social media sphere,” representing 25% of the users across 19 sites. This age group is the largest segment on 11 of the 19 social media sites. Those 45-54 are tops on another 3 out of the 19 sites reviewed.
Now, 30% of all Baby Boomers is a sizable group, but the research reminds marketers it’s good to be choosy about how much and where to invest in social media marketing.
Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) Gen Xers and fewer than 1 in 10 (11%) Boomers visit social networking sites multiple times a day. More Boomers (26%) than Gen X (19%) go on once a day. 10% Gen X and 6% of Baby Boomers say they have ever used Twitter.
Baby Boom: Born 1946-1964, currently ages 46-64 (includes both leading edge/older Boomers and the trailing edge/younger Boomers often broken out as “Generation Jones”)
Zero in on your target market by using Market Segmentation.
Let's say that your primary market is local or regional, and that you live in a community with a population of 125,000 people. The first thing you'll need to do is research the 'demographics' of your community, and divide it into market segments:
Age: children, teens, young, middle, elderly
Gender: male, female
Education: high school, college, university
Income: low, medium, high
Marital status: single, married, divorced
Ethnic and/or religious background
Family life cycle: newly married, married for 10 – 20 years, with or without children.
Next, you need to segment the market as much as possible using 'psychographics' as your guide:
Lifestyle: conservative, exciting, trendy, economical
Social class: lower, middle, upper
Opinion: easily led or opinionated
Activities and interests: sports, physical fitness, shopping, books
Attitudes and beliefs: environmentalist, security conscious.
By now you should have a picture emerging of who you think your 'ideal' customer is … or who you want it to be. Depending on the nature of your business, you might even be able to write a description of your customer. "My target customer is a middle-class woman in her 30s or 40s who is married and has children, and is environmentally conscious and physically fit." Based on the numbers you uncovered in your research, above, you may even know, for example, that there are approximately 9000 of those potential customers in your area! It may well be that 3000 of them are already loyal to a competitor, but that still leaves 6000 who are not, or who have not yet purchased the product from anyone. Do the research!
Let's face it – there's a market, and a target market, for everything.
If you don't think so, remember pet rocks? For more information on Social Networking contactChelseaRainbow
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