Adam Earnheardt
  • Blog
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Contact
  • Speaking
  • CV
  • Blog
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Contact
  • Speaking
  • CV

Learning Social Media Tricks From My Students

6/22/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
When I was a new college professor, an older professor told me, “They probably know more about some of this stuff than you do. The trick is to make them think you always know more than them.”

That advice never worked for me.

Last week during Youngstown State University’s annual Summer Honors Institute, I had the fortune of teaching some very smart high school students about social media communication.


“There’s no way I’m going to stand up here and pretend like I know everything about social media,” I said during the opening lecture. “In fact, I bet a lot of you use some cool apps and know some cool tricks that I don’t know.”


“I hope you teach me about them.”


They did.


Here are a few things I learned from these amazing honors students:


1. They still use Facebook.


For a long time, social media marketers have been downplaying the impact Facebook has on pre-teen and teen purchasing decisions. The truth is, teens are still using Facebook to connect with the world, just maybe not in droves.


Sure, not all of my students were using Facebook. But then not of all of my students were using Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat either. The takeaway here is that we will probably never have a universally adopted social media platform, and that’s OK.


The trick is crafting messages for multiple platforms in hopes of meeting the audience where they are.


2. Tumblr is still rolling.


Tumblr is a micro-blogging social app for posting images, videos, text, links and other content from a browser or mobile device. According to Tumblr, the site hosts more than 300 million blogs and more than a 135 million blog posts.


Two of my students claimed to be active Tumblr users and said many of their friends were also on the platform. When pressed about why they used Tumblr, two answers emerged: Our parents aren’t on it, and it’s really easy to use.


One student noted the “Smash Cache” feature on Tumblr, which allows users to free up extra memory on their mobile devices, delete the cache, make it run faster and crash less.


3. MySpace is still a thing.


Remember MySpace? Between 2005 and 2008, it was the largest social media platform in the world. It pre-dated Facebook in popularity and growth, but quickly dropped in usage.


For some users, it’s still a relevant social media platform, so much so that a few weeks ago, MySpace made news when its usernames and passwords were hacked and put up for sale on a hacker forum.


Security breeches aside, my students use it to stay up on their favorite bands, comedians and other entertainment. One student said “You don’t have to be logged in to listen to music, so passwords aren’t even an issue for me.”


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dr. Adam C. Earnheardt is special assistant to the provost and professor of communication in the department of communication at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, OH, USA where he also directs the graduate program in professional communication.  He researches and writes on a variety of topics including communication technologies, relationships, and sports (with an emphasis on fandom). His work has appeared in Mahoning Matters as well as The Vindicator and Tribune-Chronicle newspapers.

    Categories

    All
    Social Media

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly