You might hear something along these lines every so often, “Don’t hire a professional to do social media, just ask your grand child how to work social media.”
The funny thing about this statement isn’t the overly ridiculous ignorance as much as the overtly ridiculous ignorance.
We’re pretty sure your grand child can turn on an iPhone. We’re also mildly confident that they cannot plan a social media marketing plan.
However, we’re not that confident that they can whip up some sort of public relations / digital media / video monthly marketing plan just because they know how to navigate Snapchat.
Now, let’s be clear, this doesn’t mean that your young, millennial friends, don’t know what they are doing when it comes to social media. In fact, they may be able to learn some of the new ins and outs of social media more quickly than their older counterparts. However, that doesn’t mean that they are the best of the best.
A report by the nonprofit Change the Equation, which focuses on science, tech, engineering and math literacy, shows that some 58 percent of millennials have failed to master tech skills that help increase workplace productivity. The number is more surprising given that they spend 35 hours per week using digital media, the report states.
“This current generation of young people has never lived without tech,” said Linda Rosen, CEO of Change the Equation. “It’s second nature to them.” SOURCE: CNBC
What does that mean? Well, this is a huge blanket statement, but…
The people born from 1980 to like 2000 are pretty familiar with tech because they learned to use it from the base form. The people born 2000 on are awesome with tech because they had it right away. The only problem? The new generation never had to eek through code. They never had to blow on cartridges. The worst they have is a hard reboot, which amounts to a long press of a button on the phone.
Basically, your grandkids are really good at the current tech. However, many of them have no idea how code in that current tech works. They can turn a phone or modem or laptop off and on so that that Wi-Fi comes back, but they don’t quite understand why that works.
This isn’t to say that the kids born from 2000 on aren’t good at stuff, because they are super good at stuff. It’s just to say that they haven’t really needed to understand how a DOS machine works or how a LAN party pans out. This is okay.
The point here is that, people need to stop saying stuff like “Hey, my granddaughter knows a lot about Snapchat, so she should be hired to be the Marketing Director.”
If you’re an adult who still drive car by him or herself, then you can learn how the new social media platform works. It just takes a little bit of work.
So, as weird as it may seem, most of the current workforce is just as capable with social media as millennials, they just might be more lazy than them.