While most B2B businesses today feel they must have a social media presence, many are still working to figure out the best ways to use this new communication channel. Given the trial-and-error nature of this process, it pays to have an open mind and get inspiration where you can find it.
One place to start is by turning to the one group that is “to the media born”—teenagers. Living with two teenage daughters, 15 and 17, has shown me that this group has an instinctive grasp of how to use social media and how to keep up-to-the-minute on the constant changes in that world.
In the past few weeks alone, I’ve learned:
1. Use social media to listen and learn in ways you simply can’t otherwise
My oldest daughter is a high school senior and just weeks ago was faced with picking a college. The choice came down to UNC and Tulane. (She ultimately choose Tulane.) My daughter was conflicted. On the one hand, both are great choices. On the other hand, neither is perfect. Where did she turn? To supplement her experiences visiting each campus and trolling their websites, she immediately logged onto facebook.
Facebook provides information she could have found nowhere else. She learned what schools other kids were choosing among, what schools they were leaning towards, and why. She quickly found a number of students who’d gone with Tulane over UVA, Berkeley, Vanderbilt, NYU, and Penn. While you can get some of this information from an in-person event, there’d be no way to personally speak to all the people who weighed in on facebook.
She also talked to students and potential students about her concerns. For example, Tulane has a reputation as a party school. She was able to ask if there were any incoming freshman who were not hardcore partiers — and received a resoundingly positive response from other more serious students.
She’s even been able to sort through large numbers of people and has gotten to know a few who might make good roommates.
If I were in admissions at Tulane, the incoming students’ facebook page would be the first place I’d look to see potential students’ concerns—what makes them come, or not — and determine the best messages for reaching the type of students they’re looking for.
2. Beware of spin
That said, you can’t completely trust what people say on social media. For example, as a mom who saw my daughter’s decision process first-hand and listened to endless hours’ worth of deliberation, it was interesting to see what she finally said when she officially “announced” her decision on facebook. She wrote an immensely gracious and impressive statement about how both were great choices that she was lucky to have, but that she was happy to go to Tulane. The statement made it sound like the decision process had been smooth as silk.
3. Social media usage can change on a dime
And just when you think one platform is the place to be, usage patterns can change completely. I had resigned myself to the need to constantly check on my younger daughter to make sure she didn’t spend all her time socializing on facebook when she was supposed to be doing homework, when I began to hear rumblings that all was not well in facebook land. She started complaining that her friends were abandoning the platform in droves and jumping to Twitter, Instagram, and other kids-only platforms. Sure enough, in the course of researching an article I was writing for a client on social media, I found research that backed up her claim. It turns out that a number of factors are driving a wholesale shift among teenagers to these other media — the increasing prevalence of smartphones, not to mention teens’ desire to get away from moms who had friended them, or worse, commented on their posts.
The bottom line: social media can give you the “in-the-trenches” information you can’t get anywhere else. But beware, what you learn may not be 100% true—rather it may present the truth as the poster would like it to be. And use of these channels can change quickly—so be prepared.
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