Facebook. I don't 'get it' for IM. Why bother with it?

You kinda answered your own question, "i'm middle aged, most of my customers are 45+, we don't have our noses in ipads 'friending' our besties like high school kids. i survey my customers, 60% say no interest in social media."

But of course that doesn't apply to everyone, every market or every product. But Facebook does have a Gajellion people over 45 and more coming everyday.

So, you might want to check it from time to time, some of your market maybe moving toward it.

I notice more kids, as you term them, is moving from Facebook to Instagram. In turn - more mom's, dads, grandma's and grandpa's are getting Facebook addicted like their kids and grandkids once did.

It probably has the best Free tools for targeting on the planet, that's the appealing part to me and many others. Plus, I wouldn't forget about the 40% you mentioned that's "IS" into social media.

The only post that I see that truly addresses the OP's question - Why bother with it [for IM]?

Because, it is the second largest advertising platform IN THE WHOLE BIG, WIDE WORLD. Additionally, as mentioned, you can HIGHLY target demographic sectors. Google is #1 and FB is #2.

I'm 43 and do not have a FB or Twitter account. Personally, I ain't in to all of that Social Butterfly, put my life on a webpage for all to see stuff. Many, like my highschool friend, are, though. Including some Baby Boomers.

Don't rule out FB as an advertising platform that will let you hone in specifically on that clientele, like Baby Boomers, you serve.

Further, different ad platforms have slightly different demographics, and different verticals work to differing general success. Bing, as an example, is populated by more Internet Explorer users, which will load Bing as default search engine.

IE pretty much SUCKS in comparison to other browser options - it is less tech savvy (they don't update their browser from IE), more Blue Collar or more Baby Boomer type folks on Bing.

Factor those ad platform differences in, to be sure, but I guarantee you there are Baby Boomers active on Facebook.

There are a couple ways IMers use FB - for Content Marketing for lead generation purposes (what you don't see much use in for your clientele), and using FB as an advertising platform, where you are placing ads (not Content) in front of people. Don't rule out the latter as being potentially beneficial to you ...

It's not really about building out a good Facebook page although
that's not a bad idea. It's about digging in and understanding the
advertising platform.

I advertise a physical product on a weekly basis and consistently
get $6.50+ in revenue for every dollar spent. With the margins we have
built into our products that's a substantial profit.

If there's an advertising medium out there that offers more demographic
information on their users I haven't seen it. You can target your market so
narrowly it's almost impossible to not generate profit.

And those high school kids... most of them are long gone.

Facebook is great for us. We now have well over 1 million followers -- all built organically, by posting great content, not by advertising or "boosting" our posts. We post at least 5 times every day and we consider a post a dud if it only reaches 100,000. Good posts have a reach in the millions -- and great posts have a reach in the tens of millions. I should also add that each time we post we include links to relevant products or sections of our website (though tactfully), and while it's true that Facebook has nowhere near the clickthrough rates of other marketing channels, when your posts are seen by millions that does add up to some very decent traffic.

The other thing I like about Facebook is its virality. We've reached a million plus followers in under three years. Meanwhile our email list is only about 20,000. Granted that an email is worth more than a Facebook like, and granted that we haven't prioritized email like we have Facebook, but even so, that's a 5000% difference in list size and that difference does add up.

All that said, this doesn't mean that Facebook is necessary or even beneficial to every business. The profile of our customers is a good match for Facebook as is our niche. Moreover, our team's talents (especially in writing and graphic design) are well suited to the Facebook platform. So if we were trying to sell screen doors to the elderly and didn't know how to write both concisely and compellingly, we'd almost certainly skip it. Each business, each customer, and each entrepreneur is different and needs to use the tools that work for them.

So if you "don't get it", maybe that's just because Facebook isn't the right fit for you. But that's OK. You do what works for you, and we'll do what works for us. That should be something we both can get.

Not specifically targeted toward your question exactly, but as far as Facebook PPC goes, I can't understand why anyone would use that due to the sky high costs, and super non targeted nature of it. As to posting to your own Facebook page, I guess if for no other reason other than Google seems to love ranking those pages high.