The following information in this blog post was obtained through the services of Moz.com, SocialMediaToday.com, and HubSpot.
Imagine you grew up in a world pre-internet and time outside the home was dictated by the amount of sunlight the day has left or the watch on your wrist. You catch the neighborhood kids outside playing so you join them and spend the entire day outside and only go home once the streetlamps turned on at night. Now imagine you’re older - you just graduated college without the help of the internet, autocorrect, Microsoft Word, and something called the cell phone was just invented. You ride the bus to work and either read the paper or catch up with those same neighborhood kids that you grew up with reflecting on each other’s respective lives. You forget the entire world exists except for your own relatively small community and you are content. Imagine one more time you are even older. Your grandkids are visiting and their attention is on their smartphones in front of them, they glance up, answer your questions, and laugh with you but even when they stop using their phone it is still always in their hand. You wonder to yourself, “What are they doing on their phones this whole time?”, so you ask and your grandson or granddaughter starts talking about Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and what seems like an endless hodgepodge of two words being thrown together. You are left confused and don’t know how to relate to the kids a single generation away from you so you just smile mindlessly and nod.
This explains the situation that so much of the older generation is in and that so many of our elders suffer from. You might be asking yourself “Well, if the older generation doesn’t use social media, why are we focusing so heavily on it?”. It is because that as social media marketers, it is our job to be able to explain not only what we do, but the barebones concept of what we apply our abilities to, and a part of that is having to explain what social media is to those who don’t even understand. The older generation is a large part of the world’s economy and hold a lot of power in business, they are some of the most loyal consumers, and if you are able to help them understand your position then you will be able to convert them to a potential lead.
So, what is social media, and how can we explain it to the older generation. Well, in its most basic form Social Media is People, at least that’s what the folks at Moz.com believe, and I agree. Reverting social media to its basic structure the statement is true, social media really is people. What does that mean? Social media is the channel in which people socialize online through various methods – it would be similar to watercooler talk, a community board or meetings, catching up with friends, watching the news or entertainment on TV, all on the same device or platform. Let me explain. The concept that the older generation struggles with isn’t really necessarily social media, they have experienced social media their entire lives only it was never digitally, the underlying concept that they don’t understand is the internet, so to explain social media as experiences that they have already had would help them to better understand the concept. “…remember that the social web does not exist because of us. It exists because of interactions between people that have been happening for a very long time.” (Moz.com).
Now that we know that social media is people and the interactions between them in an online channel, it is time to look at the different kinds of interactions. The different kinds of interactions one can have online depends on the social media platform. There are both good and bad kinds of interactions that a person can have and the type that a user experiences will determine and develop that user’s opinion of the platform. Social media can be a wonderful place where people can meet friends and catch up with family, join communities and share their experience but it can also be a place of great anxiety. Our friends over at SocialMediaToday.com describe social media as it “remains a hugely problematic vehicle for divisive messaging and harmful movements”. Social media has been found to be linked to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, it also has found recent controversy on what each platform will allow in terms of free speech. Just like in real life a community, group, or person can express their opinion on controversial issues, social media allows for that too, so as we explain what social media is to others, it is important to explain the vices of it as well.
Finally, social media is not only for you and your peers, but it is also a great tool for businesses and advertising. This is where we get into what social media is and can do for us as marketers. Imagine a job board, bill board, mascot, man with a spinning sign, and all other types of physical advertising all reinterpreted digitally, that is what we are able to do with social media advertising; but it goes further than that. “Social media advertising is the process of targeting your buyer personas, audience, and customers and promoting your brand, product, or service via social media posts and ads to convert leads and increase revenue.” (Hubspot.com). Not only does social media give us the potential to capture an audience but it gives us the information that makes it possible to make the consumer advertising experience as customized as possible.
So, now we have a basic understanding of what social media is and what it can offer to a variety of people, including the older generation. You may be asking yourself what should come next, and well, read more of our wonderful blog posts like What Is Social Media Marketing here at the Social Media Marketing University to find out!
Resources
Baker, K. (2022, January 20). The ultimate guide to mastering the basics of effective social media advertising. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/basics-effective-social-media-advertising
Hutchinson, A. (2022, January 9). Social Media Fuels Division and angst – but solving the underlying issues at play is hugely complex. Social Media Today. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/social-media-fuels-division-and-angst-but-solving-the-underlying-issues-a/616881/
Social media is people. Moz. (n.d.). Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://moz.com/blog/social-media-is-people
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