Demographics

Demographics & Changing Roles

This is my attempt to further define Relationship 2.0, extend the conversation, and examine the impact it will have on business, marketing, and sales strategy. I did not intend for this to be a lengthy dissertation, however I also wanted to provide enough substance to form the basis of a discussion and provide value to the business community. My hope is that this will be just the beginning of many debates and discussions as we all try to understand the shifts that are taking place.

Relationship 2.0 is an idea, a concept, and more about defining and understanding the context of a group of people who march to the beat of a different drum. They are warm, sociable, and natural networkers. They influence others and their circle of influence can be quite wide and diverse.

Demographics and Relationship 2.0

Last year I documented Changing Workplace Attitudes and Demographics Spell Challenge and Opportunity and according to the ‘Who’s Who in the Workforce’ which identified the distribution of the population as:

• 11.5 million Schwarzkopf Generation (born before 1946)
• 61.5 million Baby Boomers (1940-1964)
• 43.5 million Generation X (1965-1977)
• 31.5 million Generation Y or Echo Boomers (1978-1989)

Schwarzkopf Generation: the youngest of this group turned 60 in 2006. Many do not have computers and never will as my own Mother says “I do not have enough time, I do not know if I would use it.” no matter how much I tell her it is easy to use she has no interest. For those that do have a computer having Internet access is ‘nice’ but not something they would miss. They do not use IM and opening and sending attachments in an email represents a significant challenge for them. They get their news from newspapers, radio, and TV.

Baby Boomers: The single largest demographic segment (age 41-59 in 2005) were not first to come online but they have quickly adopted the internet to help them find health, financial, and participate in online support groups. They see Instant Messaging (IM) as a distraction and do not really like to use it and prefer sending and receiving email.

Generation X: age 27 - 41 in 2005 and are the generation that has lived in the shadow of Baby Boomers. Some have called them the ’sandwich generation’ as they are sandwiched between the Baby Boomers and Generation Y.

They are web savvy, mobile, and have the entrepreneurial bug just like the Echo Boomers (baby boomers children). Sometimes criticized as ’slackers’, they nevertheless were widely credited with a new growth of entrepreneurship and the resulting dot-com boom.

Generation Y (Echo Boomers): age 17 - 29 in 2005, this is the generation that has never known life without a persistent internet connection or a life without computers. They love Instant Messaging (IM) and manage a large list of friends via instant messaging. IM was their first social application. Many have been instrumental in innovating Web 2.0 with social applications and tools.

This is the ‘Post and Share’ or IM generation and they prefer to get their news from their friends or a trusted source online. They spend 62% of their time reading, listening, and watching user generated content from their friends and trusted sources. Traditional media is dead to this generation. In The Secret To Recruiting Echo Boomers I document that this net-generation is curious, intelligent, focused, willing to adapt to change, self reliant and confident. They are ready to pursue their dreams via entrepreneurial pursuits.

Changing Roles in Relationship 2.0

To promote a business requires a shift in roles. Those companies who have websites, tools that empower relationships will be the ones who have a voice in the Relationship 2.0 communities.

The biggest shift I see business needing to make to really integrate Relationship 2.0 is adjusting to a new set of ‘roles’. For example:

Facilitator: Business needs to move from seeing themselves as an ‘advertiser’ to being a ‘facilitator’. As a Facilitator, business owners would provide the tools to allow people to to participate, interact, and produce their own quality content. Which changes their role from users/visitors to being an audience and fans.

Audience/Fans: Relationship 1.0 sees participants as users and visitors whereas in Relationship 2.0 context they are more like an audience and fans whose expectations

Content Sharing: In Relationship 2.0 they see themselves as part producer and consumer and the audience. They become fans of their friends content and expect to be able to ‘participate’ in the news as they contribute to the ‘conversation’. They are ‘pro-sumers’ who ‘post and share’ user generated content. They will seek out sites that provide the tools and empower the audience to share content with blog (text), audio, and video.

Social Matrix: Empowering relationships through tools that allow the ‘audience’ to interact and network to facilitate discussions, knowledge sharing and information within your community. Essentially you help your audience by making connections which becomes the lynch pin and your voice in these online communities.

Social Business Development Strategies

I purposely have not used the word ‘marketing’ because in the Relationship 2.0 context it is less about pushing out your message as opposed to having or facilitating discussions. For the small business I see a number of different interactive strategies that can be used to engage your audience:

• Blog: static website is dead in the Relationship 2.0 context whereas the blog format allows the audience to participate an interact.
• Podcast: audio and video blogging.
• Forum: anything from a Q & A forum, support forum or even allow the audience to create and moderate their own forum discussions.
• Hire Influential Peers: create a new position, Chief Relationship Officer (CRO) who is part business development (sales), part PR, part blogger position whose responsibility it is engage the community, build relationships, and monitor who is saying what about the company and your products or services.
• Social Bookmarks: I used to sponsor my own social bookmarking site, until the spam bots messed it up.
• Mash Ups: if you really want to take this seriously create your own Web 2.0 application and mash up or blend two or more online services that allows your audience to interact, rate, rank, network, post and share their opinions. In another post I will point out some examples of mash ups that fit the Relationship 2.0 context.

Remember, the context of Relationship 2.0 is not what you say but what you say about what you do. In other words do you walk the talk? This is important because they are looking for genuine relationships with individuals as well as companies. They will either become your fans or vindictive consumers, regardless, when they do you will know it and so will your business. Whether they become fans or vindictive consumers with the power to influence their network is within your control.