Apartment Blog

Do you ever wonder what your high school sweetheart, quarterback, class clown, cheerleading captain, class nerd, and valedictorian are up to these days? You may have lost touch with these people over the years but all is not lost. Baby boomers and beyond are finding social networking sites appealing for the same reasons most people do - to stay in touch with people. They are interested in reconnecting with old friends and classmates whom they haven’t talked to in more than 30 years.Currently, 16.5 million adults age 55 and older engage in social networking, according to Internet monitoring site comScore. A consumer survey of U.S. consumers from the NPD group, Inc., a leading provider of reliable consumer research, shows that 61% of baby boomer Internet users (age 44 to 61) had visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video, while 41% had visited social networks.

There are helpful, even enjoyable and easy-to-use, Web sites that offer social benefits such as networking opportunities, research tools, and helpful articles on everything from retirement to long term care. These sites allow you to sign up and join, meet others, post articles etc, while others provide access to useful information regarding life after 55. The industry experts at After 55™ Housing and Resource Guide and SeniorOutlook.com continue to stay abreast of new media trends and want to provide you with a list of social networking sites that can benefit you.

Facebook

Facebook is a place to connect online with your friends and family to share updates, photos, videos, articles, polls and games.  According to Facebook, their fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older. According to iStrategyLabs, Facebook has a user base of 18.1 million users, and the number of users age 55 and over has grown from a negligible 950,000 to 5.9 million in a mere six months, which equates to a 513.7% increase.

Once connected with friends, family and employees, you will receive notification as they update their Facebook “status” and upload photos, which enables you to maintain an online relationship and stay connected with them. In addition to the social features like sharing photos and looking for old friends, there are plenty of ways to also tap into the professional community.

LinkedIn®

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 40 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing multiple industries. According to Quantcast, users age 35-49 make up 49% of LinkedIn’s traffic, while users age 50+ make up 31%. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. The site is a great professional networking resource that allows you to connect with other people looking to explore potential business opportunities.

Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. LinkedIn allows a person to find jobs and business opportunities. Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. Job seekers can review the profiles of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

Twitter™

This real-time micro-blogging site allows you to follow and connect with interesting people and can become a very good source of information. It can be used much like Facebook to keep up with your friends and family, but you can also get breaking news updates from sites such as the New York Times, CNN and Fox News, or follow your favorite celebrities like Oprah. Stay up to date on health care, retirement, housing solutions and more by following sites like AARP. Twitter is also appealing to business professionals seeking to expand their network and share information with colleagues.  

Twitter allows users to send “tweets,” or text-based messages up to 140 characters long answering the simple question of “What are you doing now?” People do everything from sharing monotonous and routine details of every day life to alerting people to breaking news or consumer product launches. These “tweets” are then displayed on your profile page and delivered to other users who are “following” you (essentially, subscribing to receive your tweets). Also, you can follow (subscribe) to the tweets of anyone you want, from family and friends, to Oprah, major Web sites, big brands and more.

Confused yet? It’s ok. Basically, Twitter is like an online cocktail party, a text message or like a Facebook status update, with which you can keep people up-to date with your life.

AARP Online Community

The AARP.org Online Community offers users an exciting environment where users can easily connect with AARP members age 50+. AARP’s ever-growing Online Community encourages users to meet new adult friends and socialize with one another by sharing photos and videos, playing online games, seeking advice, writing in a journal, and much more. The Online Community is a great place to meet new people, share experiences, and opinions, and talk about what they’re going through, whether it’s a single’s perspective later in life, dealing with adult children, or health-care issues. Registration is free and AARP membership is not required.  58% of AARP members age 50 and older access to their Online Community daily or several times a day, compared to 47 % of members younger than 20, according to an AARP/Center for the Digital Future 2008 study.

Eons

This site offers many similar features and functionalities as Facebook; however Eons.com is boomer-specific just like the AARP Online Community. The site allows users to express themselves through their social profile and share different aspects of their life, while also having control over of the privacy settings. In addition, Eons.com enables users to partake in group discussions, maintain and read blogs, share photos and videos, and even play games. Another great feature of Eons.com is that members can sign up to receive alerts when someone from a particular area passes away or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

There are also a few boomer specific tools like LifePath and the Eons Longevity & Life Expectancy Calculator. The Longevity Calculator asks 40 quick questions related to your health, lifestyle and family history and allows users to discover how many years they still have to achieve their dreams. Once the questionnaire is completed, Eons will send you your average life expectancy along with personalized advice to living longer and healthier.

Whether it’s re-connecting with old high school friends or staying in touch with children and grandchildren on Facebook, or maybe it’s empty-nesters planning events or perhaps reading helpful articles from everything from retirement to long term care, these social networking sites are here to assist you with the changes in your life. Online relationships become very beneficial, especially when it comes to retirement, health and family members moving away. The social media adoption rate is going up for  all generations and is expected to have high growth in the coming years, so get connected and start networking online today! 

“Baby boomers aren’t technology Luddites. More than 60 % of them consume socially created content. You’ll find them leaving their opinions on Web sites and joining social networks.”
- Jeremiah K. Owyang (@jowyang), researcher with Forrester Research

There is this perception that adults over 50 only dabble on the Internet, but research is finding that they are spending more time online and interacting in robust social networking communities. Baby boomers using social networking sites such as Facebook™, MySpace™, LinkedIn®, Twitter and YouTube™ are not as uncommon as you may think.

According to The Pew Internet and American Life Project, boomers now account for 35% of all Americans online. A consumer survey of U.S. consumers, from the NPD group, Inc., a leading provider of reliable consumer research, shows that 61% of baby boomer Internet users (age 44 to 61) had visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video, while 41% had visited social networks.

Baby boomers are finding social networking sites appealing for the same reasons most people do- to stay in touch with people. They are interested in reconnecting with old friends and classmates whom they haven’t talked to in more than 30 years. They enjoy sharing photos with family and friends and staying connected to their children and grandchildren. High school and college reunions are also being organized via Facebook. Nielsen Reports that moms (aged 40-50 with 3+ children) are heavy online shoppers who stay connected via social networking more so than mom’s 39-54. Some are even replacing e-mail with social networking sites for staying in touch with people on an ongoing basis.  In addition to sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, they are also using boomer-specific sites like eons.com, boommj.com, boomertowne.com and the aarp.org social network. 
According to Facebook, women over 55 remain the fastest growing group on the site, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds. Analytics company iStrategyLabs has examined the demographics stats from Facebook’s Social Ads platform, and they have found staggering results. Interestingly, they found that the number of users aged 25-34 has grown 60.8%; the number of users aged 35 to 54 has grown 190.2%, while the number of users older than 55 years has grown a tremendous 513.7%.

Baby boomers are making themselves known in the social media space of the online world. Marketers who neglect to speak to them in the language they are now adapting to will miss out on a rewarding opportunity!

Be sure to check out After 55 Housing & Resource Guide during a paid advertising program which will be featured on Life and Leisure Television.   To view the segments’ airing schedule, click here.

Placement on Life and Leisure, which is a part of the Bravo Network, will expose After 55 to a vast audience, including:

• 70 million cable households nationwide
• Millions on DirecTV & Dish Network
• 2 million potential television households throughout Canada, via DIRECTV and the Dish Network
• 75 million Internet and news media users
  • Video On-Demand
  • LifeAndLeisureTV.com Website
  • iTunes/Podcasting and other Radio Venues
  • YouTube, howstuffworks and 12 other Video Venues  

With several housing options available for Baby Boomers and beyond, After 55 Housing and Resource Guide offers a comprehensive and educational publication that represents a multitude of communities nationwide together with companies providing products and services specific to fit the needs of the After 55 audience.    

According to PreRetirement Resources Group, Baby Boomers are turning 50, at an astonishing rate of one every 7 to 10 seconds. That’s more than 12,000 each day and more than four million a year. With that being said, the housing industry has responded to the needs of this generation and their multi faceted preferences. With several housing options available for Baby Boomers and beyond, After 55^TM Housing and Resource Guide offers a comprehensive educational publication representing a multitude of communities nationwide together with companies providing products and services specific to your needs.  After 55 Housing and Resource Guide powers SeniorOutlook.com^TM, which also offers information on moving services, insurance and healthcare.

Outdated stereotypes have portrayed people over age 50 as those slowing down in life, going through the empty-nest syndrome, and so on.  On the contrary, Baby Boomers view turning 50 as beginning a new life.  More and more, adults over 50 are starting second and even third careers, developing new hobbies, and remarrying. 

It is important to note that Baby Boomers account for 50% of all U.S. discretionary income and 65% of the average household worth.¹   By the year 2015, about 45% of the U.S. adult population will be 50 or better.²   With this in mind, marketers should acknowledge the buying power that Baby Boomers have.  This generation accounts for $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending³, making it virtually impossible for them to be ignored as consumers.   Research shows that 34% of Boomers live in households with annual incomes of $75,000, versus only 31% of non-Boomers, affirming that Baby Boomers are more affluent than non-Boomer consumers.

The online market is one of great importance when it comes to the discussion of marketing to the Baby Boomer population.  “Wired Seniors” as they are sometimes called, are the fastest growing demographic group online.⁴ In fact, SeniorOutlook.com was recently recognized as one of the “Most Useful Sites” on the Web for 50 plus adults by PreRetirementLife.com.  It has also been proven that Baby Boomers research products online more often than other groups.⁵ For instance, Boomers purchase products or services online 3% more than non-Boomers. ⁵ Boomers outnumber non-Boomers who research products and services online by 6%.⁵ Nearly 20% of online Boomers utilize social networking sites as well as online chat and IM programs.⁵ 

The Baby Boomer generation will only continue to evolve and break away from the traditional mold of how Americans over 50 live.  Marketers will need to develop new tactics and strategies to cater to this massive demographic.  The Boomer generation holds America’s buying power in the palm of its hand - a potential gold mine for marketers everywhere.

Source: ¹ Deloitte Touche, ² After 50 Marketing, LLC, ³ U.S. Census Bureau, ⁴ Pew/Internet, ⁵ Jupiter Research

I’ve written previously about the fear seniors have regarding the loss of independence. Sometimes growing old without having to move from their original home isn’t an option. Moving to a smaller, more manageable dwelling, such as an apartment or condo, is better than a nursing home where seniors lose a majority of their independence. Before such a move can take place there are four factors to consider in order for this shift to take place; security, exercise, health and socialization.

Before moving into a new environment, you need to make sure it’s a safe one. This advice is as true for young adults as it is for the after 55 demographic. The locks on the doors need to work properly. Not answering the door to strangers is an obvious and being able to identify suspicious people is important. Also, make sure you have all the information for the fire and police departments by your telephone. For extra precaution, you can look for an apartment community that is gated, such as mine, which also has a security officer out every night.

The second factor would be exercise. Exercise is important for all age groups, particularly for older adults. Is the community you plan on moving to a safe environment for you to walk around? Or is there a nearby mall for you to travel to? How about a fitness center? These issues need to be considered before you move anywhere as they are important for your health.

Speaking of health, this is another factor that has to be thought about before relocating. If you move, will you be able to properly care for yourself? Will you be able to get your own groceries, get them to the kitchen and prepare yourself a meal? Making sure your body has the nutrition it needs as well as daily exercise will keep you healthy and able to be independent longer.

The final factor, at least for these tips, is socialization. Older adults need to interact with a variety of people. Having meaningful interactions with people promotes a feeling of hopefulness and well-being. Not to mention keeping your mind sharp.

So as I’ve mentioned before in a previous blog, After 55 or not, For Rent Media Solutions strives to improve the apartment hunting process for all apartment seekers. Your independence and peace of mind is important to us. Check out our apartments for rent on SeniorOutlook.com and look at the communities you think would fit into these four categories!

Source: Unionsentinel.com

On Sunday we posted Single this Valentine’s Day? Here’s how to find a date, a blog about online dating and how to put your profile out on one of the sites. It seems that not only are generations x and y looking into online dating to find their special someone, but seniors are as well! In fact, seniors are the fastest growing segment of Internet users, and more and more of them are using the Internet to look for love. In fact, according to cbsnews.com, 16 percent of all those active on the top five Internet dating sites are 55 or older. A majority of the dating sites like eHarmony, Match.com and Date.com may cater to a slightly younger crowd, so there are senior specific dating sites popping up like SilverSingles.com and SeniorsCircle.com.

Whether you’re 28 or 57, everyone needs love in their life and online dating seems to be fulfilling a need for many. So why not try your hand at online dating? You never know who you may find!

Visit Find a Date on ForRent.com’s website and set up your profile today! You may even set upa date before this Valentine’s Day!

Source: cbsnews.com