Where are our social media elders?

October 27th, 2009 | Justin Kistner

Read an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today: Younger employees help senior executives unlock social media mystery. It struck a chord for me because I have worked with executives on the development of their social media presence for a few years now. I started off helping Sam Lawrence build his presence while he was the CMO at Jive Software. From there I went to Voce Communications where I worked with a number of execs employed by our clients. Now that I’m at Webtrends, I recently launched an executive social media support initiative designed to help our busy leadership build their presence online.

Over the past few years I’ve learned a few things about the reverse mentoring process.

Young people have an edge on how the technology works from having used it during developmental years. There is a good opportunity for reverse mentoring on the use of the tools.
Older generations have more clout to leverage social media and more important contacts in their networks. I found that posts generated more exposure, traffic, and engagement when they came from VPs and C-level execs, especially thought leadership material.
The way Gen Y used social media as teens will change as they mature. In high school and college, we’re in the midst of developing our identity; and that impacts what we share, how we receive feedback, and how we align ourselves with the group’s reactions. As we mature, the rules of social engagement evolve too.
Social wisdom from generations past applies more than ever today, yet the etiquette is disappearing. This is a good opportunity for our elders to make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Using social media for business value is not the same thing as connecting with friends. They share similarities, but they are not synonymous activities.

I share my lessons because I’ve read several articles about Gen Y and their (maybe our) social media capabilities. I’ve seen a number of interactions in the work place where senior managers give younger counterparts more credit than their capabilities deserve.

I think it makes sense to acknowledge the reverse mentoring trend, but we have to be careful not to put twentysomethings on a pedestal. We are at a unique inflection point in history—we’re becoming a connected culture faster than our ability to mature with it. As a result, there are no elders to provide a model for how to behave in social media. So, mentoring is happening in both directions of the age timeline. A primary reason for this is that young people have been the strongest adopters. But, while they may have technical experience, they don’t have enough life experience to temper it. Older generations understand social etiquette and politics better, but few have dealt with the unique challenges of navigating a connected social ecosystem.

In this messy, entangled time of social development, all generations hold pieces to the puzzle. I’d like to see more leadership from our elders on applications of social media. The technology hurdle is a tiresome excuse for not seeing more in the way of Netizenship, social media etiquette, etc. from the ones with the life experience to provide the direction.