How well do you really know social media?

If you were to walk up to a millennial and ask them if they know how to use social media nine out of ten would probably say “yes”. While this may be true, they’re clueless about how to use social media outside of uploading pictures to Instagram from their weekend or sharing food recipes on Facebook. In his article “Inside The Growing Social Media Skills Gap” Hootsuite CEO, Ryan Holmes, talks about how important social media skills are becoming and how many companies lack these skills.

Early in the article Holmes made a good point in saying that “As more platforms incorporate more sophisticated features, even the most plugged-in users are struggling to keep up.” As a “plugged-in” social media user I can attest to that statement. The most recent example I can think of is Snapchat and it’s new “Snap Cash” feature. From what I gathered, users can load money on to their Snapchat accounts and you can send and receive “snap cash” from your friends.

Bridging this social gap will be no easy task but steps are being made in the right direction. For example, Hootsuite created a “social media syllabus” that is being used in 400 universities around the world by 30,000 students. A large majority of employers are also investing in their employees by offering on-the-job training programs to help bridge the gap. There is no negative side to bridging the social gap. Yes, the upfront cost of training employees will not be cheap, but the revenue that will be brought in in the long run will make the costs well worth it.