It happened again last week…when I was giving a speech, someone asked me who was using social media because they thought their target audience wasn’t a big user. Guess again…but that’s a topic for another day.
The question I came back and asked them was, “Who is their demographic, and social media aside, do they think they “talk” to other people about their company or what they do?” Of course the answer was a resounding yes and they went on to describe their demographic – more senior management and a newer workforce of younger people entering the workforce. But they ALL have one thing in common…they talk to their peers and other people just like themselves. All generations are use Word-of-Mouth to share information, experiences, and opinions…
Now let’s fast forward to today…the era of the next revolution, Social Media. Not everyone is adopting it at the same rate, not to be expected. But what we are seeing is that different generations are using different “channels” (often referred to as social media tools) to communicate – using some form of social media. Expand your definition of social media beyond facebook and you will find a whole host of channels people are using (there are over 350 of them today).
When we went around the room and had people talk about what channels, if any, they were using to share and communicate, well over 90% of the room were using something – it shocked everyone! We had the usual channels of facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, and blogs, but then when we expanded their thinking, we also found YouTube, Pinterest, Flickr, and even a MySpace person. The bottom line…everyone uses Word-of-Mouth AND almost all of them were using some type of tool to share their experiences and perspectives. I wonder how the test would go inside your own company…maybe we should find out, it might just surprise everyone!
