HOW TO CRAFT THE WRONG BOOMER MESSAGE

The Right Way: Paint A Picture And Put Yourself In It.

Good bloggers, like good business people and good artists, always look for the edge.

You never know if you’re about to fall off until you know where the edge is, so seeking it out is part of the deal.

Bloggers look for trending topics. It’s up one day, down the next, and no one wants to confront weak traffic. So the search continues.

Blogging nirvana happens when hot topics and personal experience combine to create better content.

But that’s not what I found this morning during an internet shakedown.

A search for ‘best baby boomer businesses’ was horrible.

Near the top came a recycled post from 2007. Since I’m not in the habit of chopping on websites, I’ll leave the url out, but it was sad. You’d expect more from a post tagged for women, the gay community, and baby boomers.

How sad? Even the links were pathetic.

One points to a PR company glossing themselves for all their success. The boomer connection? Didn’t see one.

Another link points to a dead blog. How did it die? The authors killed it with a newsletter than generates ten times the membership. Where’s that link? It died in 2009 and no one noticed?

Next up is a link to a professional business page dedicated to teaching the world how to separate boomers and seniors from their money. Here’s a little help: boomers and seniors are two different animals, like cats and dogs. They may fit in the same cage, but still not the same.

Add a page with a market survey from 2012, another link to dead blog from 2010, and you wonder why boomers on the fence think the online world is a waste of time.

Before you look in the yellow pages instead of google, read a map instead of GPS, or break out the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1958 for a research project, you can do better.

The modern world speeds up and you slow down. At least that’s how it feels some days. It’s almost like you’re better off letting go instead of trying to keep up. Keeping up with what is an honest question.

Keep up with snapchat, instagram, pinterest. Be smart on a smart phone and show the youngsters how it’s done. They’ll be impressed that you can turn it on.

Will those three sites make you a better person? Will you be rewarded? Or will you leave disappointed like you used to be when you heard a new song, bought the album, and that one song is the only one you liked?

Baby boomers are famous for taking chances. Why not reach further into social media? Amaze your friends and family with your new skills.

If they unfriend you on facebook, change their phone service and number, and avoid you as much as possible, you might be living out loud too much. Boomers used to hear, “Turn that music down,” a lot. Here it is again, turn down the social media noise.

No need to document every beer, every burger, every moment, for everybody. We’re already busy doing the same thing.

The moral of this boomerpdx post: If you’re going to send yourself out into the online world, make it current, exciting, and meaningful to more than you.

The bar isn’t set too high according to the standards uncovered here.

For review: paint a picture, put yourself in it, then sing your song. Invite others when you have an extra chair like the two big reds up top.