As a followup to the earlier post about The New Influencers, I had said that I’d share some of Paul Gillin’s statements about demographics.
He focuses directly on the demographic that he feels is the manifestation of the move to a social web, and features this quote from an article by Paul Greenberg in CIO magazine:
As customers, Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers are more volatile and high-maintenance than any other generation in history. They are voracious in their desire for immediate information and have sophisticated behavioral approaches to filtering that information, no matter how many sources it comes from.
In a recent study, for example, Yankelovich [Partners] found that 63 percent of this group will research products before they consider a purchase. What makes this even more compelling is that these new customers are creating extensive communities to exchange information. even though nary a handshake occurs, the information swap is trusted — and thus is more powerful than any marketing pitch could be.
Gillin goes on to quote Forrester research data about how the adoption of social media tools and technology are heavily skewed toward this younger audience. Can’t argue with the numbers, but I think that the way it’s asserted here inadvertently implies that these behaviors do not apply to older demographics. I see similar participation and behaviors from folks all the way up through the baby boomers (but the percentages are admittedly lower).
That said, the Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers are probably still the best group to ponder since many of them can barely remember life without the Internet. The rest of us who pretty much live "connected" lives might best be described as "early adopters".
Gillin closes with a few thoughts that are pretty attention-getting (from Frank Magid and Associates), For Americans between the ages 9-28:
• they consume twenty hours of media per day in seven hours of actual time
• they’re super-multitaskers… who often have multiple media streams running simultaneously
• they don’t have the patience to listen to marketing messages
Twenty hours of media per day in seven hours of actual time???
Gonna have to think about that one. But we get the drift right?
