Stuck in the Middle

Millenials, nonprofits and social media engagement

The combination of idealism and social media fluency makes Millennials passionate about causes, but not passionate, necessarily, about nonprofit organizations. Because they view the world through the lens of social media and social networks, Millennials are less interested in institutions than their parents were. They don’t see walls where others used to because in their world, information sharing and power has shifted towards individuals. This creates a huge distinction in their minds between a cause they’re passionate about, such as cancer research, and a stand-alone nonprofit organization that may not care about them at all.

If alarm bells aren’t ringing inside of nonprofit organizations right know, they should be - loudly. 

This excerpt is from a really great book I recently started reading called The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Canter and Allison H. Fine. It pretty much says everything I’ve learned over the past year, and that’s the fact that social media isn’t a fad; it’s a way of life and it’s the way of the future. 

Personal branding and social media

While at City Year Summer Academy, Michael Messina, Online Community Manager and Social Media Strategist of City Year, gave a presentation on social media. It wasn’t a how-to guide on utilizing Twitter or Facebook, it was to remind us of the human aspect that goes into social media. The main objective was to have us think about our own personal branding and how we can set ourselves apart from all of the noise out there. 

Author of Me 2.0, Dan Schawbel defines Personal Branding as:

“the process by which individuals differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leverage it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish a reputation and credibility, advance their careers and build self-confidence.”

With that in mind, we were asked to answer three questions. 

1. What makes you different? What is your unique value proposition?

2. What are you passionate about? (Keep it to three things)

3. How can you build credibility and become an expert in your field? 

After having done a decent amount of social media work for City Year both locally and nationally, these were all good questions to be asking myself as I head into a new year. 

So, what makes me different? I have found value in providing a corps perspective on our culture, service and corps experience. When people are asking, what’s City Year, what do you do? I can give them that answer from the ground level. As a senior corps member this year in the recruitment department, it will be my job to share the stories of the corps members working in schools by either writing about it myself or giving them the platform to do so. (Both of which I anticipate happening). 

I am passionate about service, writing and current events.

As for how I can build credibility, I’ve learned that the only sure fire way to gain credibility is to earn it by doing quality and consistent work. I’ve been involved in social media since I was in the 8th grade when I started my very first blog on Live Journal. I’ve learned you should be transparent yet cautious. And you should write about what you really care about, because your passion will shine through. 

The session was a great reminder on how important social media has become in today’s society. It doesn’t have to be about sharing what you ate for breakfast, it’s about creating your own niche and connecting with others that you may never meet in person, but can still impact one another.