Why Your Social-Media Manager Can Be Under 25
Cathryn Sloan was correct – but not in the way that she thought.
The 2012 University of Iowa graduate recently caused an online firestorm when she published “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25” on the NextGen Journal website. In a nutshell, her reason:
…we spent our adolescence growing up with social media. We were around long enough to see how life worked without it but had it thrown upon us at an age where the ways to make the best/correct use of it came most naturally to us. No one else will ever be able to have as clear an understanding of these services, no matter how much they may think they do.
Within days, her short essay had garnered 624 comments (at last count) just on the site itself – the vast majority of which were negative (and often rebutting with personal attacks rather than professional opinions). The reactions ranged from Peter Shankman simply stating in the comments, “I no longer wish to live on this planet” to lengthier responses elsewhere from marketers including Mark Story and Virginia Backaitis.
Sloan did have a few defenders. Forbes writer Kelly Clay interviewed MineThatData owner Kevin Hillstrom, and his comments suggest that the young graduate’s thoughts were accurate:
“I find that Baby Boomers use social media, and that younger customers transact because of social media. This is a fundamental difference in user behavior.” And this is where the disconnect emerges. As Hillstrom elaborates, “Most of my clients want to use social media to generate sales increases and profit improvements. These efforts frequently fail to resonate with Baby Boomer audiences.”
Hillstrom’s solution is something that we will address later. First, we need to examine what exactly Sloan wrote. In her opinion, young people are better at social-media marketing because they understand how to use the networks themselves – they have always known the intricate tips and tricks within the networks’ interfaces because they have grown up with Facebook, Twitter, and every other social website. This is a reasonable statement to make (regardless of whether one agrees).
However, what Sloan seems not to understand is that knowing how to use a medium itself does not mean one knows how to use the medium for a strategic-marketing purpose. An example: Someone may have watched television his entire life, but that fact alone would not make him an expert on television advertising. A modern example: Someone may be an expert at producing an Internet podcast, but that experience alone would not teach him anything about marketing a podcast.
So, Sloan’s precise point is not accurate. However, the larger theme that she addresses is relevant: The disconnect between younger and older marketers in the context of social media.
Marketing on any medium – from newspapers to Facebook – needs first a strategic plan and then an execution of that plan. Since a marketing strategy requires research on factors including demographics, costs, required content, best execution methods, and likely results, any plan will usually have to come from an experienced marketer – most likely a vice president of marketing or a director of public relations. Unless your company happens to have a star marketer just out of a top MBA program, most people in such positions will be much older than twenty five because they will have the experience needed to produce a quality strategy.
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