UPDATE: July 13, 2010
With the 2010 version of the Social Media Revolution video
***
From a Gen-Y, to the non-Millennial population I present you with:-
You’ve met them, I have too, and they are social media skeptics.
They are the people who think it’s a fad that a bunch of Gen-Y came up with to mindlessly control the rest of the population feeding into their lustful demands of the “right now.”
It’s funny though isn’t it that 250 million people are on Facebook and at least 120 million of them log onto Facebook each day.
Did you know that if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world finding itself between the United States and Indonesia?
It’s even funnier that by 2010, which hails in less than five months, Gen-Y is predicted to overtake the Baby Boomers in sheer population size. That’s a lot of unemployed people. Maybe 80 Million Strong needs to change their name to 100 Million and Counting…
Or what about the fact that there are over 200 million blogs on the planet and they post new content every single day?
Don’t you find it hilarious that social networking has taken over the the #1 spot from pornography as the largest activity on the Internet? And the second largest search engine in the world is YouTube….
Did you know about half of those bloggers use Twitter? And a little more than half of those people blog about brands and products?
Did you know that more people trust product peer recommendations over advertisements?
Or that 24 of the top 25 newspapers in this country have had a decline in circulation because people hop on the Internet for news?
What happens in Vegas stays on FriendFeed which monitors Facebook, DeviantArt, FlickR, LiveJournal, Twitter, YouTube , MySpace etc.
Scary isn’t it?
I feel like singing my own version of Jimmy Wayne’s “Do you believe me now”………see I wasn’t that crazy……
Social Media is a strategy, my friends, not a technique.
A common misconception is that social media is about jumping on the tech-bandwagon and driving new blood into the Twittersphere, blogging world and getting yourself a Facebook page.
Not really, and the crème de la crème of social media engagers out there, they know this.
They share information vigilantly, they are vicious Twitter aggregators and they treat their Facebook pages like a target audience. They utilize LinkedIn, but some 20-something bloggers network on Ning.
Social media is about strategy, not the technique.
This is why some of the best in the business come out of the public relations world, this is why we should be handling social media.
We’re built for it. Our journalism professors will tell you this, we were the “dark side” to them. Peddling around our earnest beliefs and products, telling them we knew that this was the story; it HAD to be the story.
I suppose if we’re the Dark Side, then social media is our Death Star and the Jedi will not return because social media is here to stay, whether you like it or not.
Things to think about:-
- Who are you?
- What do you want?
- Where do you see yourself in one year? In six months? In three months? – work backwards and your devious plan can fall into place. *twiddles fingers*
Give yourself a reality check and think about what you are good at. What you want and what you are good at might not be the same thing. Keeping that in mind, they can be parallel forces for you – but only if you let what you are good at dictate what you want.
Social Media will help you get there.
Just remember for as “self-indulgent,” “coddled” and “demanding” a Gen-Y is thought to be, we’re the ones who will outnumber the rest of you very soon and we’re the ones whose shoulders it falls upon to take the world out of the recession that we didn’t make. We weren’t old enough.
There I said it.
Down the Rabbit Hole ©2009 =Sugarock99 via DeviantArt
Social Media & Gen-Y
Think of us how you will, but remember these key eight facts about us and don’t stick us in a cubicle:
- 1. We grew up with the freedom to choose. Choice, to us, is like air, we need it to breathe.
- 2. We get what we want how we want it, and if we can’t, we move on…because there are about thirty “other” of the exact same thing…and half of them come out of East Asia.
- 3. We were taught to think, to educate ourselves and to question. If it’s not authentic don’t bring it to us.
- 4. Funny how people say we don’t care, but because of us volunteering in the United States is at all time high. It worked for Mr. Obama didn’t it and his “community organization.”
- 5. Entertain us, we like being amused. We grew up on being told “have fun,” work and play – you “have to work hard to play hard.”
- 6. Sure we want things quickly, we’re used to it, we were “coddled,” remember?
- 7. To us, innovation is exciting, it’s our 2001: A Space Odyssey and by the way, it’s 2009.
- 8. We ask questions + we collaborate + we interact = we are social media.
Shunnn the non-believer, shun!
2010 video:
On that glorious note, check out one of my favourite PR guys to learn from, Mr. PR 2.0, Brian Solis, and his “The Social Revolution is our Industrial Revolution” http://is.gd/2hgSS and “The State of Social Media” http://is.gd/2hh0U.
–
Sasha Muradali runs the ‘Little Pink Book’ . She holds a B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Florida (’07) and an M.A. in International Administration from the University of Miami(’08). She loves Twitter and all things social media, so you should find her @SashaHalima.
Copyright © 2009 SashaH. Muradali. All Rights Reserved.
