How a Gen Z thinks about social media

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My daughter Kayla is a second-year student at Northeastern University, studying pharmacy.

She’s home for Thanksgiving break, so I asked her a few questions about social media.

Pictured: Kayla Shiao (photo via Twitter).

Which social media app do you use the most these days?

I use Twitter the most because I follow a lot of sports teams and Twitter is a big place for people in sports media compared to other platforms.

I started off following a group of people from my campus radio station and from there I would see tweets they were “liking” in my feed. Then I’d decide whether to follow the person whose tweet they liked.

Note: Follow Kayla on Twitter, @kaylashiao. She does photography for WRBB Sports (the campus radio station) and enjoys “shooting” men’s and women’s hockey.

She also does photography for baseball, basketball and soccer games. Kayla shares her sports photos on Instagram, @shiaopics.

What’s your take on the recent Twitter news?

The takeover by Elon Musk was very “interesting.” A lot of things are not going the way he wanted. He said that Verified accounts would no longer be for the elite, but I don’t think that’s true.

I also heard that he’s reinstating Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which can be really dangerous for democracy, especially with him aiming to run for a presidential bid in 2024.

What do you plan to do if Twitter goes away?

My career isn’t tied to Twitter in the way that other journalists and student journalists accounts are. I will just stop using Twitter.

It’s focused on words, which is what makes it unique to other social platforms. However, a lot of things that you get on Twitter, you can find elsewhere.

Around the Corner

Q&A with Kayla (cont'd)

Some marketing tools are adding artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. What do you think about that?

I think it’s really interesting. I haven’t used AI images in the social accounts that I manage, but I created some AI images for fun.

I think a big benefit of AI is auto-generated captions on videos and alt text on Twitter.

There are certain accounts that if you tag them in a tweet, it will produce an image description in the reply.

This is a great stride for accessibility on social media platforms.

You do social media marketing for a campus organization. Tell us about your strategies and tactics?

I look at engagement (e.g., likes) and plan future content based on that.

I started taking photos at events we hosted and I noticed that when I post those compared to an infographic that isn’t photo-based, the photos get more engagement.

What’s a feature that you'd like to see social platforms add?

I would like to see the ability for users to add alt text on Instagram, since it’s an image-based platform.

Next Meetup

Beyond Twitter: What's Next?

Time for an understatement: there have been changes at Twitter recently.

Join us for a conversation about Mastodon, Tribel, Project Mushroom, Post News and more (i.e., Twitter alternatives) with communications strategist Laurie Kretchmar.

Laurie will also give advice on what to do about your Twitter account. She's author of the book "Tweet This!: How to Amplify Your Brand on Twitter."

Date:
December 1, 2022, 12pm to 1pm PT

RSVP:
https://www.meetup.com/bay-area-content-marketing/events/289840409/

Note: Thanks to our sponsors, Hushly, ToTheWeb and Treasure Data.

Twitter Corner

In each newsletter, I recommend a Twitter user to follow.

This week, I recommend Mariah Obiedzinski (@MariahWrites).

Mariah is AVP of Content Services at Stamats and is based in Iowa (U.S.).

She's a fan of the Oxford comma who's spoken several times at Content Marketing World.

Listen to a podcast interview Mariah did with Noz Urbina, "What skills should UX and content marketing people focus on?"

Elon Corner(ed)

It's the top of the first in a baseball game.

Your team's pitcher walks the bases loaded, then gives up a grand slam.

You're down 4-0 without a single out being recorded.

Looks grim, right?

Three hours later, the game is 4-4 and heads to extra innings.

Elon is that starting pitcher and his team just might win the game in the 10th inning. That's my take and I'm sticking to it.

See you in two weeks!