SocialSphere, Inc.

The other day a friend of mine in the music business and I were talking about the state of the industry  -- and specifically the impact that the Internet's "long tail" can have not only on new and emerging artists, but also on the classic rockers that at least a few of us in the office grew up on in the 70's and 80's.  You know who I'm talking about...

While this isn't breaking news, or shouldn't be for hundreds of bands like Arctic Monkeys and Weezer who play primarily to college audiences and have close to 500,000 Facebook fans each -- this is news I think to classic rockers who still tour, produce quality music and have somewhere between "hardly there" and "emerging presences" on the major social media sites -- Ringo Starr, Mark Knopfler, Van Morrison and Boston's own Peter Wolf come quickly to mind.

The latest numbers on who's on social media are staggering -- and my latest factoid has caught many of my friends off-guard:

Did you know that there are about (give or take a million) as many people on Facebook in there 50's and 60's than in their teens?  It's true, check out iStrategyLabs' latest report.

In addition, the latest Deloitte study on "State of the Media Democracy," reports that at the end of last year, 46% of online Baby Boomers (ages 44-62) maintain a social networking profile -- up 50% in two years; and Quantcast recently told us that 44% of Twitter users are over age 35.

So let's go guys (I'm talking to you Van and your former roommate Peter Wolf) -- take these compelling numbers, sprinkle in a plugged-in website, a smart use of AdWords and Facebook Ads, some Facebook, MySpace and Twitter presence (tailored to fit your persona of course) -- and give the Boomers (and Xers) what they're looking for.  As I hope this short presentation shows, it's a win-win.

As my summer at SocialSphere comes to an end, I thought I’d share some of the most interesting things I found during my research:

Millennials in college want to talk to their parents – and they do, frequently.

Afraid your kids will take off for college and you won’t hear from them until graduation? Worry not. Gone are the days when calling home meant a ten minute check-in once a week. There’s no more waiting in line to use the one landline telephone on the dorm floor. Millennials in college talk to their parents, frequently and through a variety of communication tools. In a series of interviews that Jesse and I conducted earlier this summer, parents reported talking to their college-aged children several times a week on average. All the parents we interviewed utilize a variety of tools in their communication. The most popular means of communication are cell phone calls and emails, but parents said they also regularly send text messages, make landline calls, talk to Skype, and occasionally send good old-fashioned letters or packages.