Guest Speaker: Christy Perry

Christy Perry, being a social media expert, is a great example of the brave new world social media has opened for businesses. For one, social media has given gainful employment to those pioneers eager enough to immerse themselves in the changing fads of the online world.

It's too easy to only see the positives that social media can bring a company. It's a de facto mouthpiece for an entire organization's operations, and that can mean trouble in the hands of a human. The technology these days has made posting updates from anywhere disarmingly easy. No wonder companies have, several times, found themselves in the news for the wrong reasons as an employee treated the company Twitter account like their personal soap box. Accidentally or not. Less frequently but more troubling are the examples of incredible ignorance turned offensive, such as the American Rifleman post the morning after the Aurora shooting. Perry had many examples of these kinds of screw ups,

It’s hard to do serious damage through social media, media firestorms caused by social media controversies have all vanished from public view relatively quickly unless there was serious wrongdoing (see: Anthony Weiner). The net effect of engaging your organization with publics through social media seems positive overall, but I question how much so. I doubt there is a way to effectively quantify the financial benefits of devoting time, energy, or money of building a brand through social media. That’s especially true of small businesses that cannot necessarily afford a social media expert. Perry did not seem to have an overly compelling case for smaller businesses and organizations maintaining professional social media presences when their key publics are mostly of an age that doesn't spend much time on social media.

Treatise on Social Media as a Student and Consumer

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I hate social media. Well, I don’t hate it. I hate talking about it. I’ll elaborate in a minute. Some disclaimers: I gratefully use Facebook to keep in touch with friends at other universities, I enjoy the tweets of Seth Macfarlane or Bill Maher on Twitter, and I am no less susceptible than anyone else to a YouTube video of a cat doing something silly.

But to talk about how social media has impacted me as a student? I find the subject dull, unimaginative and, at the worst, banal bordering on mind-numbing. I’m only a sophomore, but every single Newhouse course I have taken has devoted considerable time to repetitive discussions in worship of social media’s awe-inspiring power. Every course. I get it. Social media is important, and new(ish), but the percentage of my Newhouse education that has been spent drooling, open-mouthed, at the multitude of 15-second news sensations created by social media is outrageous. I have to wonder what has been dropped from the curriculum in its place.

Don’t get me wrong, I see the economic value of social media. If I were starting a business, I would certainly have Facebook and Twitter accounts. I would be thankful for the increased brand recognition, additional sales, and user feedback. But that’s a no-brainer in the age of the Internet.

Further, social media has made journalists lazy. I can understand why Good Morning America would want to have an interview with, say, the owner of a turtle whose skateboarding prowess went viral instead of covering new partisan violence in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It’s cheaper than foreign correspondents, and the public would rather the news stay light-hearted. I can understand it, and I can still think it’s a mighty shame. And how did the recent trend of simply reading watchers’ tweets on air during a newscast become okay? People watch the news for the facts and expert analysis, not the mundane observations of Average Joe with a Twitter handle like @badazz331r. Cringe worthy. I’m looking at you, CNN.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. My generation has been Facebooking since middle school. Growing up with social media has made it normal, while the fascination of slow-on-the-technological-uptake Generation X is now in full bloom. Just listen to any of my Newhouse professors.

Now, stop telling me I should start a social media campaign, and start savaging my writing so I get better.