Geeks and Geezers Survey: Social Media links Youth and Young at Heart

Lancaster, PA and Berlin, MD (PRWEB) May 6, 2009 -- Ira S Wolfe has a warning for leaders of multi-generational organizations: "if you're not using social media in your marketing, recruiting, and retention strategies, they may be working more like shotguns than lasers." Wolfe, President and founder of Success Performance Solutions, based his observations on a nationwide "Are you a Geek or a Geezer?" survey his firm completed May 1.

Success Performance Solutions, a leading provider of employee assessments and leadership solutions, released its first report today. This survey queried over 1900 participants on their use of technology habits and social media trends. The purpose of the survey was to determine how different generations use social media and how education levels and gender might affect usage.

According to Wolfe, "organizations will need to understand the generational composition of their workforce and customer markets better than ever if they expect their messages to connect with their targeted audience."

"President Obama knew what he was doing when he wouldn't give up his Blackberry," says Wolfe. "With well over 80 percent of the age group between 18 and 44 years old texting from the phone, keeping in touch with this constituent was easy and quick. Business leaders should learn from this lesson. Instead of banning texting from the workplace, they should consider ways to leverage it."

It seems that texting isn't the only digital technology dividing the generations. Nearly 9 out of every 10 Gen Ys and 67 percent of Gen Xers admitted to having a Facebook account as compared to less than 43 percent of their parents and grandparents. "If businesses are targeting customers or recruits in the 40-ish and younger educated cohort," says Wolfe, "Facebook seems to be the place to be."

The survey delivers more bad news for the already battered print newspaper too. Over 3 out of 4 Millennials read the newspaper electronically. And no less than 55 percent of all groups acknowledged that they too read the newspaper on a computer or mobile device.

Other survey highlights:

• More than 50% of all respondents have opened accounts on LinkedIn, a business social networking site.

• LinkedIn participation seems to be a site frequented more by 4-year college and higher graduates than high school and technical grads; Facebook enjoys a more universal appeal regardless of education.

• Only eighteen percent of respondents 55 years and older have a Twitter account but more than 25 percent of Gen X and Gen Y college graduates have one.

• Downloading music from the Internet seems to be an activity shared by young and old alike: 62 percent of pre-1945 respondents said yes to downloading music, just slightly less than the 68 percent of the 44 year old and younger crowd.

• YouTube by far had the most universal appeal with 76 percent of all respondents watching videos on this multimedia site.

"The results of this survey illuminate intriguing and compelling relationships between technology, generations, and education," Wolfe reports. "Different generations are tuning out old forms of communication and media at different rates but the impact is the same: Web 2.0 and specifically social media are changing the way people will do business. The results should put many organizations on high alert when developing their marketing and recruiting strategies for customers and employees."

A copy of the summary report may be downloaded free of charge from the Success Performance Solutions website at http://www.super-solutions.com/Geeks-Geezers-Survey.asp.

Success Performance Solutions will continue to analyze the data and release additional reports about the use of YouTube, Twitter, and game technology over the next few weeks. For more information and to schedule media interviews, contact SPS at 717-291-4640 or 410-941-2345.

About Success Performance Solutions

Success Performance Solutions (SPS), located in Lancaster (PA) and Berlin (MD), helps small and mid-sized business managers take the guesswork out of hiring, leadership and workforce planning. Its president and founder Ira S Wolfe is the author of Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 and Geeks, Geezers and Googlization, which will be released in late summer 2009.

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