I recently came across some interesting research which if you are based in the UK you might find of interest.

Earlier this year, insurers Hiscox published the Hiscox Wealth Review for 2008 and identified that some 10% of the UK population, nearly 2.5 million households can now be  identified as wealthy.The report states that:

An average ‘Working Wealthy’ household in Britain earns £88,000 (close to triple the average household income of £33,000), takes two foreign holidays a year and has over £20,000 worth of disposable annual income.  Despite this over 90% of them do not consider themselves at all wealthy. 

However, this population described as the ‘Working Wealthy’ say they would need to earn around £150,000 per household, have paid off their mortgage, own more than one property or a holiday home and send their children to private school before saying they are well off. 

The report uncovers that:

• Four in ten go on more than one foreign holiday a year (38%)
• Almost a third own a luxury home entertainment system (29%)
• Almost a quarter have savings of more than £25,000 (23%)
• 15% own a piece of art work
• 14% own more than one property.

Here are the persona’s for the ‘Working Wealthy’ as defined in the report:

The Home County Happies

• A wealthy mature professional couple in their 40s and 50s, living in a 4-bedroom house in the Home Counties
• They are likely to have more than two cars, go on more than two foreign holidays a year, and are interested in golf, arts and charity
• Often with a second home, their children will have expensive possessions, such as laptops, and they spend a lot on private education
• Women likely to shop in Waitrose; men most likely to own an Audi  

The Shire Squires

• A wealthy professional living in a small village with his/her partner but commuting into a city for work
• Likely to be over 45, they live in a detached four-bedroom home in a small village, with two or more cars to help them with their hobbies of antiques, arts and nature
• They may have benefited from dramatic rises in the property market of the 90s
•  They spend their money on home entertainment, household appliances, restaurants, hotels and clothes, in that order
• They lead a comfortable lifestyle

The Urbanite Professionals

• Often categorised as the ‘late to start a family’ earner, the young professional has a high income but won’t necessarily think so, as they compare themselves to higher ‘city-esque’ earners
• Regularly drinking lattés, they can afford to indulge in expensive disposables, from fashion, wine, electronics to art
• They may also have benefited from an inheritance of antiques, art or jewellery, and are likely to go on annual ski-ing and/or diving holidays abroad
• Women shop in Whistles; men shop in Reiss

So if you are considering your target market for your products and services, consider how you might want to include the information from the Working Wealthy report to support you developing the persona’s for your core clients, customers and patients - does it give you a better understanding of what motivates them to spend and what their priorities are?

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Are you looking for a current understanding of the scale of social media across the globe? Well look no further than the extensive study undertaken in March 2008 by Universal McCann - Power To The People - Wave3.

The research covers input from 17,000 internet users across 29 countries and was undertaken to understand the rise in consumer generated content and how people are using social media.

It is certainly the most extensive global report I have seen on the subject of social media adoption.

Key notes from the Power To The People - Wave 3 report include the following statistics:

• 83% of people are watching online video, an increase from 62% at the time of the last study in June 2007
• 78% of people are reading blogs, an increase from 66% in the previous study
• 57% of internet users are members of social networks
• RSS consumption has increased to 39% from 15%
• 48% of the people surveyed listen to podcasts.

There are also some interesting differences about social media adoption across geographies:

• Blogging - China leads the way with 70% of internet users writing a blog (that’s 42 million bloggers versus 26 million people in the US), followed closely by the Philippines at 66% and Mexico at 60%
• Social networking - the Philippines leads the way with 83% of the people surveyed being a member of a social network, followed by 76% in Hungary and Poland alike.

Unfortunately there is no specific data for Ireland - I guess we are such a tiny dot on the social media landscape and as we have discussed here previously we are still behind the curve in the adoption of social media of business blogging an podcasting, though increasingly more people are a member of social networks from Linkedin to Facebook, from Bebo to MySpace.

You can access the Universal McCann Power To The People - Wave3 social media report online.

A word of warning - the file is over 25MB.

Thanks to Theresa Houlihan of Universal McCann for sharing the report with me.

I do recommend that you check out the Universal McCann where you can access other reports including their Anytime Anyplace report that covers mobile phones and portable technology.

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I’m noticing more and more people migrating to Twitter in the recent months - it’s one of the microblogging applications where you can post a comment of just 140 characters or less.

If you missed our recent podcast on Twitter you can access it here.

You can follow me on Twitter here.

I’ve found Twitter a great tool to quickly get a summary of what people in my network are up to, a terrific source of tips and tricks and I’ve also used it for research to ask questions.

Donna Papacosta is also using Twitter to help her create her wonderful Trafcom podcast. She recently she sent a Tweet to her network recently about the importance of creating shownotes for your podcast and her most recent show includes their comments and thoughts (if you are a newbie podcast producer, it’s definately worth a listen).

However it’s sometimes difficult to follow the thread of the conversation on Twitter or to quickly research on Twitter. That’s where these great new platforms come into use:

1. Tweetscan - a real time search engine for Tweets
2. Quotably - where you can follow the conversation online on one page - just type in the persons Twitter ID to see what they have been writing about recently - as an example you can see my Tweets here
   
3. Twitter on Alltop - the news aggregation site Alltop which I wrote about recently has the Tweets of some of the most prolific users of Twitters listed
4. Twitter Summize - probably my favourite tool for researching on Twitter as you can search under key words, search for  Tweets from a user, search for Tweets to a user, search for Tweets referencing a user and even translate the Tweets into a number of languages.

Next to Google Alerts, and Wikipedia, I’m finding Twitter a great resource for online research. What online research tools do you prefer? How have you been using Twitter?

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Have you found yourself wondering how to keep in touch with all the top stories in your field of interest on the web? Or perhaps you want undertake some online research when developing proposals or creating programmes, products and services?

For researching business blogs in your field I usually suggest that you check out Google Blog Search or Technorati.

However I am now suggesting that you also check out Alltop, a news site that aggregates top news stories from across the web, created by Guy Kawasaki and the team behind Truemors (the site that covers unusual breaking news and stories).

Alltop covers subject areas from business to news, from hobbies to technology, and from regions across the globe to green issues.

Alltop also includes a section on social media, and I’m honoured to be listed on the Alltop social media aggregator.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 

Guy was in Dublin recently and you can catch his summary of his trip to Ireland in photo’s here.

You can catch a recording of Guy on the Today With Pat Kenny show on RTE Radio 1 here.

See Guy’s Visual CV - a great tool and something I will be sharing more about soon having interviewed the CEO of VisualCV, Clint Heiden - Visual CV is a platform to both express your personal brand and employer brand online.

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BIZ GROWTH PODCAST #002 : APRIL 9, 2008 
MARKETING TO BABY BOOMERS PART 2 - ENGAGING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

In this second edition of the Biz Growth Podcast we continue our conversation with Marilynn Mobley, SVP with Edelman PR and the author of the terrific blog Baby Boomer Insights.

We continue our conversation about marketing to baby boomers, but this time explore how baby boomers engage with social media and what that means if you want to connect with baby boomers through social media platforms.

If you missed part 1 of Marketing To Baby Boomers on the Biz Growth Podcast, you can access it here.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE BIZ GROWTH PODCAST 

I’ll let you know when the podcasts are published in iTunes in case that’s how you like to subscribe to your podcasts and download them to your PC/Mac or portable media player.

In the meantime, you can also access the Biz Growth Podcast by either clicking on the play button - the audio will stream direct - or you can right click on the MP3 link and save it to your hard drive to listen to at your convenience or transfer it to your portable player.

BIZ GROWTH PODCAST SHOW NOTES

00:00   Introduction: The internet and how Baby Boomers engage in social networking and social media
04:00   How Baby boomers engage with the internet and social media versus the Millenial Generation and Generation X
06:55    How to market to Baby Boomers and embrace the use of social media marketing
09:34    The 7 C’s for effective social media marketing to Baby Boomers
15:06    What we need to consider when marketing and engaging with Baby Boomers using social media
17:17     Resources for further information on marketing and social media marketing to connect with the Baby Boomer generation
20:39   The key to marketing to and connecting with Baby Boomers
25:00   Show end

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

AARP - For People Over 50

Baby Boomer Insights - Research Insights And Opinions On Marketing To Baby Boomers

Boomers - A Trip Into The Heart Of The Baby Boomer Generation

Boomer Consumer: Ten New Rules for Marketing to America’s Largest, Wealthiest and Most Influential Group

Boomer Women Speak

Growing Bolder

Saga Zone - the socail network for the over 50’s

Second Fifty Years - Reaching Boomers And Seniors Today

HOW TO LEAVE US FEEDBACK

Do share your thoughts on this episode of the Biz Growth Podcast. Perhaps you have found some of the strategies and tips we share have worked for you or perhaps you have ideas and suggestions you would like to share with our listeners? You can choose one of 3 different ways to get in touch so why not:

• post your feedback in the comments section at the Biz Growth News blog
• leave comments at our media centre by calling +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842
• or send us an email at connect(at)bizgrowthpodcast.com.

MEDIA NOTE

The Biz Growth Podcast is hosted by Krishna De, an international author, professional speaker, and mentor in the field of employer branding, personal branding, brand engagement, leadership and social media.

The Biz Growth Podcast is for marketers and executives who want to access the leading edge thinking in the world of branding, marketing and social media.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.  In the case of reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. These conditions can be waived by permission from the copyright holder.
 

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