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To paraphrase Aldous Huxley, one of the 20th century’s most famous writers and futurists, it’s time to be brave and face the new world. Social media, consumer conversations, Web 2.0 digital interactivity are all upon us. The old way of looking at the world as a collection of markets and our customers as targets to hit with a message is fading into the sunset. The brave new world is a place of engagement, where information, content and the brand or product experience will lead the way. And the communications tools – channels, if you will – for reaching consumers and spreading the perfume of your brand’s experience are increasingly offering a digitally interactive conversation, and it’s the customer who’s in charge.

“But that’s not my customer,” you say? “My customer is 75 and older and they’re not, as a rule, digitally sophisticated.”

Perhaps not. But their children are. For example, the 55+ age group has grown their presence on Facebook by more than 500% in the last six months! Those users have grown from less than one million in January 2009 to more than 5.8 million by July 4. It’s their children who are driving them to embrace the new media, and smartphones and netbook computers are making it all so easy to do. Safe to say that part of our world that hasn’t changed is about to.

Plus, for these adult children, this new media world is fun. It’s informative. It allows them to connect with people they thought they’d never meet, let alone Tweet with. It makes the world smaller and the opportunity to engage with them larger. Click here for a little more insight into how subtle, seductive and powerful it can be.

So, how important are your customers’ kids to your customers’ decision-making process? What do these adult children know about you? What do they think of you? How have you engaged them in the experience you say you offer? Don’t get me wrong – traditional forms and venues and outlets for traditional advertising approaches aren’t going away anytime soon. But the digital landscape and the new power of the consumer in terms of how marketing messages are encountered is steaming rapidly in our direction. If we ignore it, we’re likely to find out it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel we see, but the light on the front of the freight train coming toward us.

All of which means this is without question the brightest opportunity to explore, experiment and develop new ways to connect with your customer to come along since the introduction of television. Time to be brave and embrace the new world. Opportunities like this just don’t come along very often.

For those of you in the field of senior living, no doubt you’ve heard your prospective residents say they just have too much stuff, and it will difficult to get rid of their decades of belongings. Usually that’s one of the reasons used to rationalize why they don’t want to move to a senior living community.

There are certainly a number of services out there to help older adults make the process easier. And many communities have an ongoing relationship with those services to help their new prospective residents. Still, those prospects have to make the mental leap.

Now there’s a study underway to find out more about the downsizing process.

The Lawrence Journal-World recently reported on a study being conducted by the Life Span Institute at the University of Kansas. The purpose is to determine how older adults get rid of their belongings when it comes to making a move and downsizing. The head researcher is quoted as saying the main goal is to find out how they get rid of the possessions and how they feel about it.

David Ekerdt with the Household Moves Project states that many believe people become imprisoned by their stuff in later life.

There is no doubt that living in a retirement community helps those seniors break free from what is holding them back in continuing an active and engaged lifestyle. If their “stuff” is holding them back, the findings of the study could assist communities in helping prospective residents overcome the obstacle and make the move.

If you have been in the field of senior living more than two weeks, you have probably heard the term “cruise ship on land,” or a version of it. It’s a common phrase to describe an amenities-rich community that caters to every need of its residents. Now, I have heard both sides of the debate on whether or not this is actually an appropriate and compelling description for any senior living community, but that’s not the subject of this blog.

No, today we can literally have a debate about the attractiveness of a cruise ship retirement community. Last week Oceanic Retirement Communities of America announced it has begun taking reservations for independent and assisted living accommodations on its residential cruise ships. These will be floating CCRCs. The ships will have home ports in Florida, but plan regular cruises through the Caribbean and to Central America. 

It will be interesting to see how this concept fares as it will mostly likely be only the first of many different community models created and marketed to the Baby Boomer mentality. And that’s what struck me when I read the press release about a cruise ship retirement community – they were talking about Boomers.
  
Lots of senior living professionals are talking about Boomers, but here’s the thing: the Boomers aren’t talking about retirement communities. That’s because the Boomers aren’t ready for a retirement community — even if it floats. 

With the average move-in age for CCRCs above 80 years old, the Boomers won’t be in the picture for years. At best, their influence can be seen on the drawing board for future communities that need to anticipate market demand ten or twenty years from now. So sure, it’s fun to think about the community of the future, and maybe it will float. But for now, I think I’ll still talk to prospects about safety, security and peace of mind that comes from moving to a CCRC – even the ones that are landlocked. 

We discussed the benefits of blogging in a previous post last week. If you’re ready to get going, but don’t know where to start or need a bit of inspiration, here are a few ideas.

10 Senior Living Community Blog Topic Ideas

1. Explain something about your community or services that might be confusing to someone unfamiliar with senior living.
2. Post a video from the last fun community event.
3. Share an interesting story one of your residents just told you (of course, it should be a positive, inspirational story!).
4. Make lists — they are quick reads and are engaging. Everyone likes a good “Top 10 List”… here are some ideas: Reasons to move to your community, Signs your parent might need to consider a senior living community, Activities at your community, Favorite web sites of your residents, Best desserts at your community, etc.
5. Provide a blog about available resources for seniors in your area.
6. Blog about why you became interested in serving in the senior living industry at your particular community and why you love your job today.
7. Ask residents their opinions on a topic and then share the results.
8. Interview a resident, adult child, employee, etc., then post the interviews on your blog.
9. Offer general news stories related to seniors (health tidbits, seniors living life to the fullest, technology, etc.).
10. Share a story in which your community helped with a charity organization or green initiative.