Social Media, Higher Education, and Millennials

(This is a blog post from last year. This is how I traditionally write and think.)
 
There is one question people ask me all the time: What do you think will happen to social media in the future. My answer is very simple and honest: I don’t know. What I do know is that it will keep growing, expanding, and evolving.

Many things have changed since the old days of Friendster, MySpace, and Hi5. Nowadays press releases are distributed first on Twitter and later posted on the company website. Music videos now live on YouTube, Vimeo, or Vine; polls are now conducted on Facebook and resumes are now reviewed along with LinkedIn profiles. Is Higher Education the exception? Not at all!

Do you remember Cliff’s Notes? Some students may not even know what that is, however, they do check YouTube videos when they don’t understand something discussed in class. As you all know, generation Y or the so-called “millennials” are the great majority of students currently attending college and grad schools; they are the target audience for colleges and universities across the country and they are extremely tech savvy. They want interesting commercials geared to their needs. They want brief messages, compelling stories, and fun videos.

Social media use and consumption accounts for a much larger part of college students’ time than most other age groups. Therefore, it’s no surprise that social media continues to play a significant role in students’ lives throughout their college career. 

My goal is to become more strategically oriented, and to discover new tools to properly engage with my audience. When millennials want help, they want it now; but when they don’t want help, they expect the sales staff to be invisible. In the new age, the best marketing is going to be invisible. In higher education and in any other industry this is currently the challenge, how do you pitch a product to a millennial? Perhaps that should be a future blog post?