By now, every single person in social media has seen this outrageously poorly written blog post by inexperienced COLLEGE STUDENT Cathryn Sloane. It is a naive tale by an incredibly young and ignorant girl who decided to tell the entire world that her generation is the only generation capable of doing social media. Think I am kidding? Well here is a quote:
“To many people in the generations above us, Facebook and Twitter are just the latest ways of getting messages out there to the public, that also happen to be the best.”
Uh? what? (clearly Cathryn has yet to pass take an English writing course) but I think we can kinda understand what she is trying to say.
I know, I know….it sounds like a joke. I honestly thought I was reading The Onion for the first several paragraphs. Happily, I didn’t have to wait long for my brilliant social media colleagues to chime in with their thoughts in the comments…..
(And there are 402 comments just like that….brilliant rebuttals. Every single one.)
People pinged me, asking what I thought and if I was going to say something. I think they were curious, since not only am I am OLD LADY of 41, but also because my presentation on Community Management (that was part of a recent CM Certification course for WOMMA) I make a point to say ‘Not everyone is a Zuckerberg’ and emphasize that hiring youth does not equate into the skill sets to run social media platforms. Just because you are 22 and have a personal Facebook page with 800 friends and know how to post pictures of girls in bikinis that get 20 comments each….does not mean you know ANYTHING about being a social media manager for a BRAND….. you know a brand that has things like KPIs, higher level engagement goals and share of market targets.
To be a social media manager, you need to first understand BUSINESS.
…Profit and loss, marketing cycles, strategic value consumer targets, tonality and voice, effective customer service and about a billion other things…..things you learn from EXPERIENCE and time and frankly sometimes from AGE.
Of course -not always; I know plenty of young things who have grasped the the concepts quickly and are excelling as social media managers. But they have done so with a sense of HUMILITY and eagerness to learn. Two things that Co-ed Sloane seems to be lacking.
I appreciate her passion and excitement for the medium. And I think it is kinda cute that she doesn’t even realize that she just pissed off every single person in the industry who be a would be employer. “So you are Cathryn Sloane. And you want to work for me? You know I am over 40 right? So you think I am an IDIOT?…..don’t call us. We will call you sweetie.”
Also, (and this might not be relevant) but little Co-ed Sloane has a total of 100 Twitter followers (and dropping) and a Klout of 15. Meaning, she isn’t even a frequent user of SOCIAL MEDIA. And none of us, whether we are 20 or 80, should be listening to the silly rants of a college girl.
Sidenote: Nextgen has lost all credibility to me by both publishing this insane post and their follow up piece. They just don’t get it.
Remember this NextGen, as far as the industry and profession of social media management :
Those who can –DO and those who can’t? Write blog posts about DOING IT.
Also: Get decent author photos. These all look like they were cropped from some group party shot. See us old people? We know about these things like creating a professional image…..
OH! And your tagline
‘Voices of the next generation –our generation’
makes NO SENSE. The next generation can not be YOU. You are THIS generation. GAH.
You young kids these days.
Find an adult to HELP YOU PEOPLE OUT K?