If you were born in 1985 and up, this article is talking about you. If you’re older than that, keep reading anyways, because this advice could benefit anyone.
I could bet anyone the seventeen dollars that I have in my wallet right now that this particular age group would have to use more than one hand to count the amount of times they have been scoffed at by older generations due to their habitual addiction to social media. I’m here to tell those who are guilty of this enslavement and those that ridicule said victims that being a media-raised millennial isn’t a bad thing…it isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, if you’ve got the way of the web under your wing, you’ve likely mastered a platform that your superiors feel lost in. Play your cards right and you have the potential to be a key contributor to modern day business ventures.
If you feel like you’ve spent a lot of your life defending yourself from comments like “you shouldn’t be addicted to social media,” and “why are you always on your phone?” It’s time to wipe the shame away because although you feel like you’ve been in the wrong, you’ve been antagonized in a situation that you actually have the upper hand in. You see, media is the up and coming generation. It’s already running our businesses and ultimately our lives, so why fight it if it has already won?
Public Relations has taken social media by storm, and has become one of the most important departments of a company. By taking a technological approach to building the face of businesses, everything has changed. Companies are needing more and more employees that understand the do’s and dont’s of the internet. Our generation has a built-in specialization and it’s time that it is embraced rather than condoned.
So why is it so hard for older generations to understand that social media is a blessing rather than a curse? Perhaps it is an inability to see that the world is constantly evolving; social media is a new level of terrain that gives us as young entrepreneurs tons of ground to run on. Or maybe those that haven’t grown up in a media infested community are scared of this foreign language that hasn’t become their innate second nature.
Media is alive and well in today’s world. So instead of putting it back in the box it has emerged from, instead of shooting it down, I encourage you to take it out and apply it to your business endeavors. Think of it as a dialect that companies pay thousands of dollars to understand and you have been gifted its comprehension for free. Social media has become the surface of the world - pure gold in the realm of PR. Grasp it by the keyboard and work it. #publicated
