A recent survey confirms something we’ve heard all along: You’re using social networking differently than your parents do. While Baby Boomers use the online tools to find a good deal, Generation Y shoppers visit sites for the sensory excitement.
This general assertion stems from three main findings detailed in the study. First, most Baby Boomers (80 percent) choose retailers on the basis of practical decisions, such as price, convenience, or availability. In contrast, only half of the Gen Y respondents indicated the practical considerations were important for them.
Second, the notion of “sharability,” such that users would want to share the experience they have with others they know, is twice as important for Gen Y users than for Baby Boomers. Similarly, the younger crowd takes careful stock of whether they would be fine if others knew they had visited a site.
Third, Generation Y users demand sensory appeal. The site has to be exciting and “make me smile” for it to attract them to shop. The Baby Boomers considered this aspect considerably less important.
The researchers responsible for the survey summarize their findings by referring to a “practicality divide” that reflects the contest between “sensible shoes versus smartphones.” This shorthand description of the differences in generations may be a little oversimplistic, but it helps demonstrate the need for different appeals to different users. Baby Boomers may be heading online, but they are acting very differently than the digital natives.
Discussion Questions:
1. What implications do these findings have for social media providers?
2. What characteristics of the two generations studied might help explain these findings?
Source: Tom Ryan, “Study: Gen Y Bringing Social Networking to Retail,” Retail Wire, March 21, 2012.
Grewal Levy Marketing News 
Clearly, there are preferential differences between Generation Y and Baby Boomers; these known differences pervade the realm of social media. First of all, the fact that Baby Boomers are using social media sites for finding deals and coupons should be alarming to current marketers. For example, companies advertising on Facebook should have Facebook place majority of coupons on the pages of the elder users. Their conversion rate will be much higher than for people in Generation Y, who are more interested in uploading their recent photos and posting on walls. Older people, who are the more recent ad-ons in the world of social media are essentially more pliable or easily able to be influenced on these sites.Therefore, if coupon deals and personalized advertisements become “common place” in the older generation’s minds, they will associate Social Media sites as platforms for deals (Baby Boomers are also huge into finding sales and saving dollars). Alternatively, younger individuals, those who have been using social media sites for a long time, simply associate the sites as social platforms, or places to build their networks/reputations. While concerned with building their reputation, many of the younger individuals are not interested in taking the time to find deals, or show others they are buying an item at an on sale price. It would be interesting to see if marketers are capable of integrating promotion into the whole “social stigma/reputation” oriented view with which younger individuals utilize Facebook.
Social media providers need to understand the different needs and wants that generations have when it comes to social media. Different generations may be more likely to use social media, further according to generation privacy, sharing ability, and even purchasing options may be preferred. This in turn leads to social media segments based on generation which companies may have to target differently in their social media strategies. One application may not be suitable or effective for all generations and perhaps customization is key.
Some characteristics of these two generations which help the findings are that Gen Y is a generation which is highly involved in social media sharing (Facebook) and so they probably want to be able to share their experience with others instantaneously. Baby Boomers are price sensitive and so price becomes a priority in comparison to Gen Y. Practicality is also more important to Baby Boomers who want to be able to find deals and have access to the product rather than simply be able to play within the website to purchase at a later date.