Social Media IS for Generation X - it suits their lifestyle, life stage, and mentality.

Yup, you heard me. 

We have to stop thinking of social media as a youth phenomenon, and look at the ways in which it is being used by and fits with the life stage of the over-35 crowd.  If we don't, the disconnects between managers or advertisers and their potential audience will continue to increase.  For data convenience, I am using a 35-54ish definition for Gen-Xers and a 18-34ish definition for Millennials.

Insert standard these-are-broad-generalizations-and-(of course)-don't-apply-to-you-personally disclaimer here.


1.    Social media suits the GenX relationship style - Gen-Xers grew up in the Reagan Era - Just Say No, AIDS, and the Cold War.  They aren’t used to and don’t expect constant contact with friends, and I suspect have more mid-level relationships than Millennials.  Millennials grew up in an era of constant contact, and the people they REALLY care about hear about everything through texting, not through Facebook.  Gen-Xers also have different, usually stronger, definitions of personal privacy, which may explain why there is a disconnect between Facebook and its users around privacy.

2.    Social media suits GenX parenting - Gen-Xers were raised by either stoic Depression-era people or self-absorbed Baby Boomers.  They raised themselves, in large part, and don’t necessarily use their parents as resources.  So they love co-parenting with their peers, and Facebook provides a great mechanism for that.

3.    Social media suits people with geographic pasts - While most Facebook users have gone to college or beyond, Millennials are more likely to attend community college or a local school, living at home much later than the Gen-X group did.  So they may not have the need to maintain contacts with distant college friends in the same way.

4.    Social media suits people with life histories - This one is pretty simple: the longer you live the more places you’ve been, the more jobs you’ve had, the more people you might want to connect with.  And there are advantages to the electronic relationship.  People who would NEVER have spoken to each other in high school are close on Facebook because their kids are the same age.  The person whose personal phone calls drove you crazy in the neighboring cubicle is a useful contact on LinkedIn.

5.    Social media suits those for whom it is unusual - No one ever says, at a party or in a bar ‘So, have you been to McDonald’s?’  Facebook is McDonald’s for Millennials - always there, no need to discuss it.  But for Gen-Xers it is worth discussing socially, and that is, after all, how social growth happens.


Facts:
According to iStrategyLabs, as of June 2010, 30% of Facebook users are in the 35-54 age group.  This is about 43% of the total US population in that age group, according to the Census Bureau.  Using the same numbers, approximately 87% of the 18-34 age group is on Facebook, which may be close to saturation.  The 35-54 Facebook group is growing, but the Over-55s are growing the fastest of all.

According to Quantcast, 48% of Facebook users have children between 0 and 17, and 53% have gone to college, at least.  They tend to be affluent, and some minority populations, like African-Americans, are more present on Facebook than on the Internet as a whole.

Quantcast also has LinkedIn data - 38% of users are 35-49, 75% have gone to college or grad school.


So there is huge potential for developers, marketers, and managers to tune their social media presence for the Gen-X audience.  Once they admit there is a Gen-X audience . . .

(first published in August 2010)