Why only people over 40 should do social media for a living.

There are plenty of people in the under-30 set who are proving their worth in social media management because they know how to engage others and effectively market their product/service. But you’re absolutely right– just because someone have a FB page or Twitter handle doesn’t mean they know jack about community management. Its a skill unto itself.

Not to mention she hasn’t responded to any of the comments on her post or any of the rebuttals posted on other blog. If she runs and hides during a crisis, how is any brand going to trust her to manage their online presence?

But not responding to anyone she basically proved that she’s neither responsible nor mature enough to do this for a living.

Ugh, excuse my typo. Have should be has.

I agree with Deep Soni, too. People like the Sloane give a bad name to people in my generation, though I think she is younger than me (basing this on the fact that I got a FB account when I was in college, with my university email address). I can’t stand the undeserved entitlement, and it oozes from her article.

Dead.

Well, it took them a couple of days, but they did publish a nice rebuttal from Mark Story.

http://nextgenjournal.com/2012/07/dear-nextgen-a-rebuttal-from-the-social-media-old-folks-cathryn-sloane/

specificity
- no dictionary results

I’d like to hire her to do social media for my company, because making up words is very impressive to clients.

Wow. Looks like Cathyrn definitely hit a sore point.

With all of your “professionalism” and “experience,” you’ve managed to do exactly what you accused Cathyrn of doing: making false generalized claims about a specific age group.

Somehow, between the time spent “making 800 Facebook friends” and “posting bikini pics,” the younger generation has become a real threat to the older employees working in this line of business. Your intimidation is easily seen in the bitterness of this post.

Thanks so much for this Marcy! I can finally laugh about that ‘other’ post. I’ve seen one too many firms hire young inexperienced ‘social media experts’ with disastrous results.

The one that sticks out in my mind is a law firm whose Facebook page Admin posted about how the firm hopes everyone enjoys cookouts, beer and beach plans for Memorial Day. (followed by 15 exclamation points)

Seems that the Admin didn’t know that many of us spend Memorial Day at the cemetery.

This is hilarious.

Marcy, here’s the thing that really worries me. Whenever she applies for a job from now on, the potential employer is going to Google her, and that post will likely be the TOP result for her name for the rest of all-time.

Which is NOT the worse thing that can happen. It could actually be quite the positive. Because any job interview she has will likely start this way:

Potential Employer – “So I did some checking online, and found this post you wrote about how no one over 25 should handle social media marketing for companies. Wow that post got a LOT of negative feedback! How did you handle that criticism?”

When Cathryn replies ‘Uhhhh….I didn’t', she’s ended the interview. THAT is the worst thing that can happen. If she were to write a proper response and show a bit of HUMILITY and UNDERSTANDING for the POV of the people questioning her, she could still turn a very negative situation, into a positive one. Potential employers will be more interested in how she HANDLED this adversity, than what caused it, IMO.

I really hope she says something and says it soon.

Aaron, you said: “I have never seen a group of individuals, adult or adolescent, take such offense to an article.”

Having seen, and been the target of, angry pile-ons when people take great offense at articles, I can only say “Where’ve you been? Do you only go to nice friendly sites? Did you miss somehow miss Scalzi’s post “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is?” That has a much larger and more, um, powerful response from the many offended by it. And he deleted a lot of the angry comments by people who took offense…

This is mild. This is common-garden-variety offense. I don’t see rape threats, death threats, accusations of treason, godlessness, ruination of society, bringing on the Apocalypse, or downbursts of words so beloved of the street-corner tough. I’ve seen worse than this in a butterfly-watcher’s listserv (and that did surprise me–I thought that would be a safe haven full of politeness, sweetness, and light,, but it wasn’t) when someone felt that his expertise hadn’t been sufficiently respected.

Mack: Social expectations of how to handle pile-on type criticism are not the same everywhere, all the time. My generation (probably older than most here) of women were taught not to respond to a bunch of hassling people who disagreed with them. It was “lowering yourself” and “creating a scene” to answer back. (This is much the same advice given to writers today about bad reviews and harsh criticism online.) A crowd of critics does not want true “engagement”–they want the person they’re attacking to submit…as you said, “to show humility…” to admit they were wrong. But the fact is, if everything is known about everyone, then everyone’s got black marks on their record. An employer who looks at a stupid mistake by a young person still in college ten years later, rather than what the individual has accomplished in ten years, is…foolish, in my opinion. There aren’t that many people who never screw up, and the few there are don’t have the other qualities life demands–a concentration on not making mistakes–any mistakes, ever–takes energy away from initiative, creativity, curiosity.

I messed up several ways in college–so did just about everyone I knew in college–some academically, some with drugs, some with sex, some with relationships, etc. But we got past it, most of us. I’m successful in my field and yes, I still make mistakes. People still get mad at me when they don’t agree with me and sometimes (not always) I agree that I’ve screwed up royally. And if they’re honest, I’ll bet most of the people 40 and over here well remember their own lack of maturity and things they said that they shouldn’t have and wish they could erase from memory. Making mistakes–being stupid sometimes–is part of living. Learning from those mistakes does not mean (always–sometimes it does) groveling and apologizing. Sometimes it means just not making the same mistake again. So if I were an employer, I would not consider failure to answer back a major failure in handling a pile-on. I might say “Some people think a direct response is the best strategy. Can you explain why you didn’t try that?”

(Can I explain why I bothered with this comment? Well, yes. The current book chapter is being a PITA, the characters are acting like idiots, and I wanted a break. Back to work now…)

I applaud your post and the commenters that followed!

I completely agree with your point – if you don’t know business, your social media “expertise” ain’t worth a hashtag.

I’m a 47-year-old professional with a wide range of experience (journalist, feature writer, editor, marketing/sales, website development and blogger). I jumped on the social media bandwagon (originally for personal recreation) 4.5 years ago and now thoroughly enjoy assisting growing businesses leverage social media to meet their business goals.

Thanks for taking a defiant stand for all of us “old farts” that don’t know nothin’ about social media!

@Jason,
“What I am seeing … is cockiness due to lack of real world experience … being pushed down by insecurity from a group desperate to prove their value in the social media world. ”

Thanks for pointing this out. I never agreed with Sloane’s article, but the backlash from 40 and 50-somethings is amusing and hypocritical.

@Elizabeth,

Fair enough. What I meant to say is that the article in question, a bit naive but harmless on the whole, has generated a disproportionate backlash around the web. If the article is so trivial, and the author is merely a “silly girl,” then why did Marcy take the time to punch out this blog post?

And Marcy, let me just say: this post is bullshit. It’s more poorly written than Sloane’s initial article, it screams of insecurity, to be honest, it looks like a crabby 12 year old’s Xanga rant. With all of your strikethroughs, “Uh?!,” and ……..’s, this looks more like a long, petulant text message than a thoughtful response from a professional.

Seems like everyone here is having a good time patting themselves on the back being ‘right’ rather than helping potentially offer tips or experienced points about the ways that they also demonstrated their own possibly similar, albeit technologically different, forms of hubris and underage over-enthusiastic mistakes in perceiving the world around us.

Knocking another person’s work or effort (let alone publicly) is virtually never professional, certainly not in distant ‘listen to me’ forms like the comment section of an article’s interpretation of another article.

We all strive to do well, so do well. Write this girl directly, offer your own stories of humility and how that shaped your own learning, or make sure to take her perspective and use it to your advantage in making sure you’re keeping several varying views in mind as you shape your own opinions, messages, and work.

Any time you look at ‘they’ rather than ‘we’.. you run into a slippery slope.

Peace. Adam.

The most scary part of this is that she just graduated from a good school (University of Iowa) with a B.A. in ENGLISH! No kidding!

I so enjoyed your take on this.I missed this post but now I need to go read it.