The Power of Social Media

At the National Active Retirement Association (NARA), we regularly host speakers and read lots of articles about the power of social media. It is clear that those in business now are entering a new age of media...more immediate, more direct, more targeted. Everybody has their preferences, their likes and dislikes and the days of only having three black and white TV sets that go blank with the Star Spangled Banner at midnight are laughable. (Oh wait, I'm dating myself....my daughter already thinks I am a relic from the horse and buggy days).

Anyway, for those active adults over 50, we are straddling the old and the new. We remember punch cards, days before FedEx and faxes, before personal computers and email and certainly the power of the internet. But, we are among the fastest-growing users of social websites like Facebook. Aging boomers are relying more and more on online stockbrokers, online job searches and social connections on the web.

At NARA, we are pleased to see how the web has made us more efficient as a society. However, doesn't it seem like things are accelerated by six times? We can have 12 business conversations by email in a day that used to take a month. We can transfer documents and proposals instanteously, get feedback, revise and resend by the end of the day.

The ways we market, sell and serve aging boomers and beyond will be covered in detail at our October 20-22 "Power Tools" NARA Conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in the Vista entertainment district in the lovely Capital City and college town of Columbia, South Carolina. Never been to Columbia?

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DsftmI9d4w

And, if you forget how to find NARA, do this:

Go to Google and Search "Retirement Association" (NARA #1; AARP #2), or
Go to Google and Search "Retiree Association" (AARP #1; NARA #2), or
Go o Google and Search "Active Retirement" (NARA #1)

Among about 8 million listings in a sea we call the web, we're not that hard to find.

SEE YOU IN COLUMBIA!
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