Those were the days. When marketers and small business owners could easily understand the value of their efforts and have a tangible real-world understanding of how their money was being spent. The biggest issue was worrying about changing campaigns, not changing mediums. To quote Gary Vaynerchuk in his new book Jab,Jab, Jab, Right Hook:

“Forget Mad Men, and fuck Don Draper. He lived in an easy world where nothing changed for thirty years, where you could spend your whole career working to figure out how the print and television markets worked. This world, the one you and I live in, evolves every second, every day.”

Social media marketing is always evolving. New features, new looks,new platforms, and new users in your community are just some of the pressing challenges behind maintaining a social marketing strategy. No one, myself included, can ever be a social media “expert, ninja, guru,” or any other vanity buzz word. Working in social media marketing is a never ending learning process that brings new challenges every single day. If you are not ready to learn, then you picked the wrong occupation.

According to a ComScore digital use study, 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus, social networking accounted for 16.6% of time spent online in 2011. This number is growing as more and more people have access to mobile devices and other technologies around the world. As the amount of time consumers spend using social media continues to climb, so too will the number of brands utilizing these channels to market themselves.

Right now there is a lot of noise on the web and no concrete educational structure that addresses the problem of social media literacy, especially for the fastest growing demographic of new social media users ages 55-64. Even more fascinating is the number of internet users ages 65 and older using social media has grown from 13% in 2009 to an amazing 43 percent in 2013.

I’m not saying everyone in these age demographics lacks an understanding of social media (my grandparents get around just fine), in fact there are many people of all ages who pretend to be <insert social media buzzword here>. What I am saying is there is a massive lack of understanding by people of all ages from around the world. As we all steadily become more “open and connected,” the evolving technological landscape makes it difficult for even the “experts” to keep up.

With this rise in social media use from users of all ages around the world comes the need for what I refer to as “functional social media literacy.” Traditional functional literacy is defined as the range of skills and competencies that enable individuals to live and work as human beings. I am taking this concept and applying it to the current need for social media literacy around the world.Social media is not only a new marketing medium, it’s a means of mass communication and personal data storage that make up precious moments of our lives. We all need to learn not only how to use these mediums, but also how to protect our priceless personal data and privacy.

The Millennial Generation is witnessing the birth of an entirely new industry with jobs emerging in social media brand management, marketing, and communications among others. Many older unemployed individuals are looking to social media for new job opportunities. Unfortunately both of these generations are lost in an abyss of technological jargon and platforms that have complicated learning curves.