Everyday, I explain to people how valuable it is to spend a few hours a day on social networks building and harvesting relationships. I compare it to real life: you make new friends and you keep in touch with them, you have conversations, you share common interests… it’s all the same thing, but online. And the beauty of building these relationships online is that you can make friends from half way across the country, or even the world! I can’t stress enough how important it is to allocate some time throughout your day to various social networks. It’s an uphill battle at the moment, but I’m confident that people will begin to understand what we’ve been telling them, very soon.

As far as teaching these skills at universities, I’m not sure that’ll happen just yet. The reason I helped start Social Media Club South Florida is because I felt that what I was taught in college was no where close to what I learned on my own after graduation. That’s not an attack on the professor and definitely not on the university. The way I see it, universities have a budget and a set curriculum that create somewhat of a barrier when it comes to changing things around and teaching new classes in fields like social media, a field that many people call a “fad.”

Don’t get discouraged if people don’t grasp the concept as quickly as you did. Some people aren’t early adopters, but eventually, they’ll find the value in social media… or not. By the same token, social media isn’t for everyone and every industry.

This has happened to me so many times. I often explain the value of Twitter (and other Social Media tool) to Communications (Adv/PR) students and recent grads and the responses I get truly startle me. “I barely have time for Facebook, why do I want to use Twitter? What a waste of time!” “I don’t get the hype about Twitter!”

I guess what surprises me the most is that many fail to see the relationship of creating messages on Social Media sites with what they are learning in the classroom. The media is drastically changing and it’s a shame that the some Gen Y (who, in my opinion, should be fueling the market place with new ideas for social interaction) get stuck with ideas of how many ads to place on print and newspapers as their most creative strategies.

How do you think this issue could be solved in the classroom? Should this encouragement come from faculty? or should students be naturally inquisitive about their field and try all the tools on their own? I’d love to hear your thoughts about that!

I somewhat get offended when people bash a tool that they don’t fully comprehend, but like you, I prefer they not clog up the servers.

More power to those that use social media tools and to those that don’t