Today’s Truths, Tools, +Triumphs is the first in our three-part series on social media’s impact on the future of learning and the future of work. |
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Setser Group will soon launch our Tik Tok Channel, and as we prepare, we thought it would be great to share with Setser Nation our current take on going social in 2022. What signals the truth for your organization? What data is of most value? How do you know your story is making an impact?
Here’s our why: We’re just catching up with the Generation Z kids, and now Gen Alpha has entered the chat, and their digital skills have gone meta. So buckle up, fellow Old Timers, we have some hard truths to look at. We need to understand social media because we are not its drivers. In fact, what drives it is mostly in reaction to us. The young generation has control of the wheel, and we can only guess where they will go next on social media. If video killed the radio star, then social media killed the video star. It’s true. MTV now has more programming about social media and social influencers than they do music videos and musicians.
Many people thought, hoped, prayed that the term “social influencers” would fade into the nether regions of the internet like fo shizzle, but, nah, it helped upend the entire NCAA and is now the engine of the new collegiate Name Image Likeness (NIL) programs that reward student-athletes with hard-earned dollars, delivering to them the social justice that we couldn’t. It turns out these unlicensed kid drivers are alright.
There are hundreds of social media apps, most with niche users connecting with just a handful of features. We will focus on the big ones that impact the workforce and education. Social media advertising can target very specific demographics, so we know certain networks collect that data. Marketers tend to study social media usage by generation.
Here are the current generational divides and what network they favor:
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You need to ask yourself, are your social media efforts on the networks where your students, clients, customers, and stakeholders spend most of their time? |
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Let’s take stock of the social networks that are important to the future of learning and the future of work. Some may be new to you, and there may be some new to all of us by tomorrow. The space is fluid, the competition is fierce, and we need to follow our intended audiences. |
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Snapchat - 500 million monthly active users (MAUs). A photo and video messaging app that allows users to put a time limit on messages. The app includes voice and video calls, text chats, and geo-filters. Tons of businesses advertise on Snap, but not many have active accounts. Popular accounts include Taco Bell, Amazon, Acura, BuzzFeed, MTV, VOX. UNC-Chapel Hill, NYU, Princeton, University of Michigan, and Hope College use Snap to recruit students, often turning the accounts over to students who promote the schools.
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TikTok - 1 billion MAUs. The fastest-growing network worldwide. The app is built around creating, sharing, and searching for user-created music videos. The app’s technology for video editing, filters, animations, and remixing far outpaces all the competition. The app makes it easy to “gift” currency to live streamers. Businesses are all onboard with TikTok from advertising to active accounts. Colleges and universities have a heavy presence on the network. Harvard’s account has over 1 billion views. Penn State and UCLA are both closing in on a billion.
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YouTube - 1.7 billion MAUs. Youtube has the world’s second-largest search usage, only behind parent company Google. Is Youtube even a social network? Yes, users can follow each other, subscribe to content, chat, like, share, and now, and most importantly, live stream and interact with each other. For many users, Youtube (and other streaming services) has completely replaced traditional TV viewing.
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WhatsApp - 2 billion MAUs - This text message app has a wide range of social features —messaging, profile creation, photo/video sharing, and status updates. Interesting fact: WhatsApp Business was created specifically with small business owners in mind and is widely used by big brands and small shops. The app can help connect businesses with their customers and support them with immediate, personalized customer service. Similar to Snap and TikTok, colleges and universities are using WhatsApp to market and recruit students.
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LinkedIn - 310 million MAUs - This is the network for CEOs, executives, superintendents, principals, and professionals of all types. There’s no meme game here. This is where professionals connect and job recruiters find job seekers. LinkedIn partners with universities to offer people who complete select LinkedIn Learning online learning paths the opportunity to gain official academic credit in a range of programs. Most university career services offer online and in-person help with LinkedIn.
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Facebook - 2.9 billion MAUs - That’s almost half the earth’s population, but no longer the favorite in the U.S. with Gen Zs and Millennials. Its public pages, private groups, live streaming, targeted advertising, and sheer reach still make it an important tool for schools and businesses.
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Instagram - 2 billion MAUs - As a visual platform, Instagram is the place where schools and businesses showcase their products or services with photos or videos. Features include photos, videos, stories, and live streaming. K12 and higher education have an active and large presence on the network.
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Email - Is email even social media? On networks like Substack, it is, and it’s revitalized the email marketing game. Substack is a subscription email service that generates a live webpage for each newsletter you send. Readers can like, comment, and share. Substack has over 500,000 subscribers and 14 million monthly views.
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Slack - 10 million daily active users (they’re already different) - Organizations are adopting Slack as their internal communication and workflow platform. The "workspace" is divided into "channels," which are separate group chats with their own members and topics. Team members can send messages, videos, images, links, and respond to posts with comments and emoticons. The platform is quickly replacing email as the main internal communication tool. Slack is also highly social to solve problems outside of your company or organization. Slackers are far from it. They organize quickly to form online communities and to solve problems in days that used to take weeks for organizations to even understand.
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Microsoft Teams - 270 million MAUs - Microsoft Teams is a collaboration and video conferencing platform that allows people to communicate via text chat, voice, or video call. Features like @mentions, group chats, channel favoriting and following, and an activity feed give MS Teams a social feel, perfect for professional in-house use. Teams is social and mobile, and if you are not, your organization is not benefiting from the wisdom of crowds and diverse perspectives that comprise it.
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In next week’s second installment, we will look at how social media impacts the future of learning and how organizations can build their teams and culture with the right networks and tools. In our third installment, we will examine social media in the workforce and reveal our new social channel. We hope to see you on that channel!
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The world is a better place when people and organizations tweet, share, update, post, friend, like, check in, connect, donate, and post for social good. Activists harness the power of social media in awareness and funding campaigns. The collective mind solves our problems and answers our questions every day. Crowd-funding has rebuilt homes, paid for legal defenses, financed independent films, paid tuition, kept the water on, and on and on and on. You see, people really want to help!
A simple thing like changing your profile picture to promote a cause or including your preferred pronouns to identify yourself as a safe adult all bring about change. These actions tell your friends and followers that it’s okay to talk about these things, to like these things, to accept these things. From small gestures to organized campaigns, social media continually moves the Overton window in a positive direction. Ten years ago, same-sex marriage and ideas in the Green New Deal were not even up for discussion. Social media moved the discussions from “radical ideas” to popular ideas and eventually public policy.
Here are two instances of good on social that we like.
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Five high school friends started the Teenager Therapy Podcast, helping other teens who were facing the same issues as they were. With no marketing budget but a savvy social media game, the teens grew their podcast into a large following. The podcast has more than 600,000 subscribers on Spotify and is the winner of the Digital4Good award.
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Starbucks’ #WhatsYourName campaign was inspired by transgender customers who were sharing stories about trying out their trans names at the coffee chain. |
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Want to share Setser Group on social media?
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#socialmedia #social #socialmediaforgood #teams #teambuilding #culture #SetserGroup #FutureOfLearning #FutureOfWork #SetserNation
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