Snapchatting With the Whippersnappers

Hey, you! Young people! Get off my lawn!

And take your Snapchat with you!

As a PROFESHUNUHL Social Media Manager, it’s kind of my job to be on the pulse of what’s hot and trending as far as moving the brand along; getting as many conversions as possible. As things start to shift in the world… blogging heaving its last dust filled choking breath as Twitter, Instagram and Vine become king and YouTube is to the world what Wordpress was five years ago, things are faster and more designed for a generation who has been in front of a screen, documenting their lives since birth.

I, on the other hand, am in that crevasse of Generations X and Y who had a cellphone at 18 and a sweet AOL dial-up connection by the time I hit college, so while I was young enough to embrace technology, I am now old enough to be a creature of habit and not want to try anything new. I fully embrace Facebook (now referred to as “Old People Book” by those under 30), Twitter and Instagram. I find Vine to be too ADD and niche, Periscope is utterly confusing, and forget about Snapchat.

Until earlier this week when Snapchat decided they were going to monetize on their way to joining the big boys Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now Snapchat has become a necessity for any social media marketing campaign, and I had better learn how to figure it out and fast.

So after taking a swig of my Geritol-Metamucil-Ensure smoothie, I called my assistant, a lovely 21-year-old woman and social media maven, who can take and post a selfie mid-conversation with me without me even knowing what happened, to help me set up my Snapchat and see how it worked.

A lot of snapping, swiping, texting…you have a story that the world sees…you can discover all sorts of things, search for people, the possibilities are endless. However with the Snapchat interface, it’s very different to what we olds are used to. There isn’t this formulaic setup that puts us on a linear path to use, it’s immediate and relies heavily on swiping, tapping, pictures, videos and texting.

I am seriously like a caveman seeing fire for the first time. I am intrigued and legitimately afraid. While it seems easy to just about everyone, to me it’s so labor intensive! Now I can appreciate how my Grandfather felt all those years ago when I showed him how AOL email worked and programmed his first cell phone. It was totally second nature to me, but he was still at, “So where’s the power button?” after an entire tutorial.

I think I’ve sent out two Snapchats, or whatever they’re called. I’m still figuring it all out. The younger people I’m following flood my feed all day, and I just look at it all with great wonderment.

I’ll probably have it all figured out by this time next year. Just in time to have to learn something else the kids are doing and is now essential to building a brand. That’s social media for ya. I’ll just be over here building a sweet flash background for my MySpace page.