Is Selling to Seniors on Social Media Worth Your Brand Dollars?

E-commerce has been tumultuous for brands that have long marketed to older consumers via traditional media channels like print and TV, a problem compounded by their target audience's reluctance to adopt social media, reports Forbes . Tapping the senior community hinges on social channels determining whether enough seniors actually use social media, shop online, and are amenable to brand appeals through social channels. According to Pew Research, 65 percent of consumers 50 to 64 and 41 percent of consumers older than 65 use Facebook, while Instagram also has garnered respectable numbers of older users. Meanwhile, Nielsen calculated that the segment of total weekly media time spent on social media by persons 50 and older climbed 64 percent between 2015 and 2016. Pew also suggested the high-income seniors brands most want to reach via social media are the most reachable, with fewer than 25 percent of those making less than $30,000 annually using social media, versus almost 60 percent of those earning more than $75,000 a year. E-commerce data also implies that, in theory, brands can reach seniors and push purchase decisions before they leave a digital storefront. The feasibility of using social channels to get older customers is complicated by findings that the cost of acquiring seniors is significantly higher than for millennials or Generation Z consumers. However, they also suggest older customers will have more brand loyalty over time, relative to other customers.