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.
Tags: workplace, social networking, generational issues
Categories: News