Gen Y and Social Media – the way of the future.
One of the TV programs I really enjoy is Channel Ten’s “Talking About Your Generation”. Not only is Sean Micallef incredibly entertaining but the whole concept of war of the generations seems quite topical in the real world.
Is Gen Y really the ‘red headed step child’ of the family?
As Gen Y myself, I am constantly being reminded about how lazy, disloyal and downright annoying we are. But if that’s the case, does that mean the future of the real world is doomed as Gen Y slowly moves up the ranks and start taking control? What about the web based phenomenon they call Social Media that has allowed Gen Y to develop relationships and communicate over cyberspace? Does the real world need to embrace this new type of reality?
At the MBA Partnership, the majority of our team fall into the Gen Y demographic and I can guarantee you we are not lazy or disloyal. (As for annoying, that would depend on personal opinion). Either way we are not the minority that give Gen Y a bad name.
We are however all heavily involved with Social Media. Almost all of us have a Facebook page and almost all of us are addicted to it. With this form of Social Media we no longer need to leave the room to ‘poke’ or ‘like’ someone and ‘Facebook stalking’ is a socially acceptable pastime. As Gen Y climbs swiftly up the corporate ladder we are bringing with us this new medium, making business use of Social Media acceptable.
So, what is Social Media?
Social Media is different from traditional or industrial media (ie newspapers, TV and film) as it reaches both large and small audiences; is inexpensive to create; is accessible by almost anyone; does not require any special skills to start and time lag between communications is virtually instantaneous.
Due to its ease of use and growing popularity, the use of Social Media is constantly expanding. Social Networking (like Facebook) now accounts for almost a quarter of all the time spent online in the United States and Twitter averages about 40 million tweets a day. Australia actually has some of the highest Social Media usage statistics in the world! In terms of Facebook use Aussies rank highest with almost 9 hours per month from over 9 million users.
Hence this is a useful marketing method that many businesses are yet to tap into. While it may be harder for the other generations to understand how tweeting something or liking a page will generate business, the Gen Y ‘kids’ have all grown up with this process as the norm and therefore have more trust in Social Media than most would believe. We now live in a society where sources like Facebook and Wikipedia is considered truth! It does not take much to generate a ‘conversation’ online and with it ‘good attention’ to the business.
Another way businesses have adopted Social Media is for investigative purposes. For example when potential employees make applications, a quick search on Facebook will give a good indicator of what kind of person they are really like, or when employees are unwittingly making work related comments that they should really think twice about. Most Gen Y have learnt (possibly the hard way) the public domain that Social Media uses and therefore have created privacy settings that make investigations redundant however it is always interesting when people are caught out.
One true story of the power of Social Media is Ramon Stoppelenburg, a Dutch man who managed to travel around the world for free from 2001 to 2003 by use of his blog on Letmestayforaday.com. His website was his profile which he then created a network of online offered places to stay for a night and then took off on his adventure!
Social Media and the rise of Gen Y as the way of the future is inevitable.
The real world must embrace this new ‘reality’ - like the old saying goes “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
At least there’s still a good while away before Gen Z (aka iGen) takes control... because then I think we may be in trouble… those little brats.