5 ways to get Baby Boomers on board with social media

A friend of mine in marketing recently described her colleagues’ objections to using social media to communicate to a national, multi-generational workplace.

Although her Generation X and Generation Y peers clearly understand the importance of using social media as a communications channel at work, Baby Boomers are another story.

It can be a challenge to persuade marketers from older generations to embrace social media. Not always, of course, but often enough. They have their standard communications toolkit, and when someone suggests social media as an addition to that toolkit, they can quickly dismiss it.

We can’t force anybody to love social media, and that’s fine. But to dismiss it might alienate a demographic who may be one of your target audiences, and who will most certainly miss out on your key messages.

As such, you should view social media as another tool in an organization’s corporate communications or marketing toolkit. It’s no different from public relations, direct marketing or advertising.

Here are some selling points that may persuade Boomers to value social media as an important part of the marketing mix:

1. Social media can be more cost effective than other marketing channels.