I hate to sound like a cheerleader for Twitter

I really don't mean to sound like I'm selling Twitter stock or something, but right now I'm trying to explain to a business I'm involved with just why they need to step up and participate. It's not easy, sometimes, especially when the staff and decision makers in the business are, well, Old Folks.

Time does march on, even at work.

I think that's the term I'll use. Old folks. Mind you, I'm 56 years old myself. But I'm not completely one of the Old Folks. I pretty much keep up with technology. I love social media, both for business and personal use. And, most importantly, I realize that my generation (and people with the same online and social media experience as me) are not going to be running things forever.

Even more to the point, we're not the ones who are buying. Not the majority, at least, not any more.

Like it or not, business leaders and consumers—whatever group is your target market—are getting younger than you every day that passes. And they're more involved and invested in social media. The question is not whether your business needs to use Twitter or Pinterest or Tumblr. It's how well you're going to use it…or, unfortunately, just how late you're going to be to the party.

Old Folks look at their customers and see people who are more or less like themselves. In some ways, that's accurate: They're in the same community, the same industry, interested in the same products or services. But they're not responding to the same marketing that the Old Folks do, just as the Old Folks react differently from the even older folks that came before them.

My mother may have changed her opinion of, say, a headache remedy because someone in a white coat holding a clipboard said it works better than other brands. An actor in a lab coat isn't going to influence my opinion of anything, except maybe of any business that thinks I'm going to fall for that.

And that's the point: They're not likely to "fall for" it, the things that convinced their elders. You've been successful by marketing a particular way in the past. But don't expect  a brand new market, who aren't Old Folks, to respond the way previous generations did. They're different than you, and you have to approach them in a way that they respond to, not the way their old bosses did (or you still do).

Whatever they like, you need to use. Wherever they go, you need to be there. Right now, that means—here she goes again—stepping up and diving into social media.

It's not going to go away. Well, a particular platform may go away (MySpace, anyone?), but social media, as a whole, is not something you have the option of taking or leaving.

It's not if. It's how well, and how quickly. Ya old fogey!