Last Saturday night I was at a party with several old friends. Not many of them realized how I had been making my living for the last year and, as the conversation began to centre around social media, I heard someone say "I think Facebook is just stupid".
I was about to round on her with several expletives and counters to her observation when I thought, "hold on, why would someone think that? This might be useful."
Rather than regale her with the valid uses I know for Facebook I took a minute to ask her why she felt that way.
As it turns out she had had a fairly miserable high school career. Thwarted by nasty girls and "misplaced" invitations to the cool parties. She couldn't understand why anyone would want to make contact with a former high school friend they hadn't spoken with in 20 years. Fair enough.
While her reasons for "hating" Facebook were pretty personal there are still many people who just don't "get" social media.
It reminds me of my mother. My mom is the world's most reluctant embracer of technology. How long has email been around? 15 years? My mother is still incapable of sending an email by herself. We have done countless tutorials and dry runs. I even live 3000 miles away with her grandchildren and THAT's not enough incentive for her to embrace the technology.
And Skype? Forget about it! I think, deep down, she feels that Skype is Big Brother and she'll somehow lose part of her soul if she partakes in it.
For as many years as there have been technological breakthroughs there have been people like my mom, and my party friend. Unable or unwilling to learn the ropes. In some cases people are simply uneducated in the media form.
How many times have you heard a comment like "I don't have Twitter because I don't think people will care that I'm going out to walk my dog; going to the bathroom; on a cruise; on a date; etc"?
More often than not I find myself explaining the different social media outlets and their uses to friends and clients alike. It's almost like a mantra now:
Facebook humanizes your company and your brand.
Twitter drives traffic to your web site or your Facebook page.
Linked In is where you make connections to others in your industry.
All of them are used to build relationships.
I never really get tired of outlining it in this very simplified way because I often see the light come on in the listener's head. (figuratively of course :) When I drill it down to this very basic explanation I find that people become more willing to embrace the notion of social media as a relevant marketing tool.
For anyone using social media in their career it's obviously much more detailed than this but if you're looking for a way to quickly quiet those skeptics who threaten to round up a posse, out for Facebook blood, this might just do the trick.