In an ever-growing world of technology, the Internet and social media have become the future. Since the first social media sites were created in the early 2000's, a demographic of young people has dominated their usage. Websites like MySpace and Facebook were originally used as networking sites (and that is still their main purpose), but now these sites have become much more integrated and involved. This has allowed companies the opportunity to buy up advertising space on these sites, and that makes the social media phenomenon very interesting to cover from the promotional products industry.
Now it seems that social media has broken ground on the final frontier: a demographic of people aged 55+. More specifically, the numbers increased 88% from Internet users 55-64, and 100% in the 65 and up age group. What makes this so interesting is the fact that there is obviously a huge gap in Internet savvy between this age group, and people in their 20's, 30s, and even 40's. These people have gone through a major portion of their lives without the benefit of computer technology to get them by. They used a pen and paper instead of calculator, got their news from printed publications instead of websites, and met their significant others at dances or through mutual friends, instead of meeting them on dating sites.

Whereas younger people matured with social media, these people have obtained so much life experience without social media that they are considered "old-fashioned" and don't see the communication and advertising benefits of social media. Or at least previously they did not. Now they are finally coming around to realizing that the 20th century is long behind them, and this is a brave new world. Of course there are both pros and cons to that new world, but in the case of social media the attributes of the technology are overwhelmingly positive.
Now while this new demographic is using sites like Facebook to socialize with friends, and make new business contacts, we in the promotional products industry see the advertising potential in these new statistics. Potential advertisers that do good research will optimize on this new trend. This means new types of Internet advertisements which are catered towards the older age group. Facebook has the birthdate information of mostly all of its users. They will start developing more and more ads now based on this information, so that clickable ads appear on the Facebook interface which are most relevant to the age of the user. For example, instead of the user clicking on the homepage and seeing general ads for a phone company or movie, the older user might see an ad for a healthy eating company or AARP membership.
Companies who have struggled to reach these people in the past through traditional means of advertising like television ads and billboards will now have the opportunity for a much different approach. Now, older people may be spending time browsing Facebook or Twitter instead of flipping through the list of their favorite television programs. Furthermore, there is a crucial difference between TV ads and Internet ads: on TV, there is programming followed by commercials. Many people have subconsciously trained themselves to zone out during these commercials or even change the channel. The conversion rate of people watching the program to people see the ad is low.

On the other hand, Internet ads co-exist with the programming or function of the website that the user is currently on. Facebook users can still browse the site while they see the ads in the corners of the screen. To go a step further, these ads have the potential to be fully interactive for the user, through the use of games and quizzes. While young people have been immersed in this type of advertising from a young age, it's something completely new to the older demographic. Therefore, it is much more impressive and stimulating, which will make older users incredibly receptive to it once they have let in the idea of social media in the first place.
The promotional products industry will be following this trend much more closely in the future, to see how they can stay ahead of the curve and get involved in what is becoming the industry with the most potential for profit in present day.
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