You can't ignore social media for your business

By Mike Meyer

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 31, 2012

~~<p>It's impossible to escape the influence of social media. As a more "mature" member of the tech community, I must admit it took me a few years to get with the program. I cubby-holed <a href="http://www.facebook.com" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.yelp.com" target="_blank">Yelp</a> and the like incorrectly as something for kids. That may have been true at one point, but it's surely not the case now. According to a <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2011/Social-networking-sites-and-our-lives.aspx" target="_blank">2011 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project</a>, the average age of adult users of social networking sites rose to 38 in 2010 from 33 in 2008.</p>
<p>In other studies the average age of someone who tweets is 39 years, and the average age on LinkedIn is 44 years.</p>
~~

It's impossible to escape the influence of social media. As a more "mature" member of the tech community, I must admit it took me a few years to get with the program. I cubby-holed Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and the like incorrectly as something for kids. That may have been true at one point, but it's surely not the case now. According to a 2011 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the average age of adult users of social networking sites rose to 38 in 2010 from 33 in 2008.