The Importance of Social Media
By Tyra Watts | Published November 17, 2022
The usage of social media has increased within the last ten years or so. It has created a surge of influencers and content creators across various platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and many others.
While social media can help connect people based on niche interests, it can also help people get jobs and connect with businesses and companies in hopes of a prosperous career.
The importance of social media is shown here at Kean University’s School of Communication, Media, and Journalism, where they have a social media minor program and a social media course, COMM 3533.
When minoring in social media, you have to take 18 credits. You are required to take COMM 3533, and you can pick two courses to take between these three options: COMM 2503 mass media, COMM 2920 introduction to journalism, and COMM 3660 public relations.
You also can select three courses to take out of the following: COMM 2403 production foundation, COMM 3917 sports writing, COMM 3920 specialty writing for the web, COMM 3675 media advertising, COMM 3915 feature writing, COMM 4620 public relations writing, COMM 3003 media journalism, COMM 3503 media criticism, and COMM 3910 advanced journalism.
Gina Gili, a communications lecturer that teaches social media at the Kean Ocean campus, explained that she teaches the class by bringing in local business owners who do not have a social media presence.
“I teach the students how to organically put together a social media campaign,” Gili said. “We do different inventories of big companies and look at what they have and what they do, and because of that, my students can find jobs.”
Gili also mentioned how she and the class work with Hootsuite, a social media management platform, and their education team. She explained how every student that takes the social media course can get a Hootsuite certificate and it can be used on things such as a resume.
Gili also adds that she and the students create their social media campaigns and pitches, they run campaigns, make up fake campaigns and create those, and see where they do well and what they need to work on.
As for social media becoming a career, Gili stated that everyone nowadays wants to be an influencer and that no matter what field you are in, everyone wants to be a Kardashian. She explains that there’s good and bad with it, and expressed how on the good side, they’re good at making a lot of money, but the bad is that you don’t want to put your eggs in one basket.
Despite this, Gili says that social media platforms can help you, depending on the algorithm, become famous. She goes on to explain that we can have something go viral unintentionally and cites TikTok as an example of this.
Gili compares TikTok to making the average person go viral for being authentically themselves to much bigger apps such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, where you would have to be someone of importance.
For example, Gili said that you would need to have a verification check and the algorithm to work in your favor to be seen.
“Social media has caused us to put an imaginary value behind things,” Gili stated. “Because someone who is verified is more important than us, so what they think matters, they belong to the top of the chain, not us.”
Despite this, Gili loves the idea that anyone can become viral as long as the content is there, but you can have something great but not have enough people see it, hence why things are pushed out more than others.
In terms of how serious social media is becoming now that it is being offered as a minor and a course at Kean, Gili says that Kean and other universities are focusing more on social media.
“It’s a real thing, it’s in our faces, and it’s not going away,” Gili stated. “The best thing that you can do is learn as much as you can about it, in the time that you have. The school 100% understands this, and the school has people that work on their social media.”
With the flaws that social media has, like cyberbullying, Gili explains that it is important to take into consideration that anyone can be on social media platforms. She believes that the type of content that we are watching is the question.
“As soon as we watch one, they start putting it on your algorithm more often,” Gili stated. “But because these big companies are owned by the same people, and because your cellphone is listening to everything you’re saying, and your internet history is linked to all these marketers that want to market your products, it’s hard. I would like for there to be more control over the content that our kids are seeing.”
Gili also adds that there are options within these social media platforms where you can report someone, whether anonymously or not, and that the community guidelines that these social media platforms are setting are not policing users.
Meanwhile, Anthony Nicoletti, a professor who also teaches the social media course at Kean’s Union campus, takes a much different approach when teaching the class. Nicoletti stated that it’s not about teaching, it’s about learning from each other.
“Social media for me is new and changing every day, and there are things that arise and come up, and we can discuss them and see if there are solutions or if there are problems,” Nicoletti began. “It’s not a traditional class at all because it’s not like accounting or bio.”
He then further explains how the class discusses the companies that are involved, as well as the brands and the issues at hand, and that there is always something new every day. Nicoletti also adds that he wants to learn from his students and vice versa.
In terms of what he wants students to leave with after taking the social media course, Nicoletti hopes that students are prepared and that they’ve done projects or assignments equivalent to things that they would do if they become social media practitioners.
He also cautions students that while social media is fun to mess around with, everything they post is permanent, and even if you delete it people could have screenshotted it and will always remember your posts.
Nicoletti even starts off his class with the question of whether or not social media is bad to hear what they think, because there is no answer. While Nicoletti highlighted some of the good with social media, there are also some of the bad with social media, and he cites cyberbullying being one of them.
“There is a beauty and a tragedy of this existence that we have with social media,” Nicoletti said.
Nicoletti agrees with how serious social media has become now that Kean offers it as a minor and course, and explains how there are so many jobs and opportunities, and ways to connect. He also wants his students to get jobs and realize that if they’re good at tweeting and understanding a brand and what they want, that’s not only a job but a career.
If a student wanted to use and apply social media in their career path, Nicoletti suggested that if students can put forward the identity that they want to and interact and engage the way they want to in the communities that they want to, that’s how you connect with people.
He further goes on to say that if you have the right skill set for it, no matter what your major is, you can get involved and make a job out of it.
On the topic of social media being a career path, Nicoletti stated that although there are too many influencers nowadays, social media is still a career path and an opportunity. He notes that his students mention the Wendy’s Twitter page as an example and how fun their tweets are, but he also adds that it’s a person behind those tweets and that if it’s something that you want to do, then go chase it.
While influencing and content creation may not be the ideal career for most people, the members of Kean University’s Content Creation Network (CCN) freely express themselves to grow their businesses and brand, and social media plays a big role in the organization.
The organization’s president, Oluwasegun “Segun” Ologundudu, believes that social media is the direction that the world is heading towards, citing businesses and independent entrepreneurs and creators using social media as their main platform.
He also tells a story about how he had a conversation with his advisor about social media.
“I remember I was talking with my advisor and he was like, ‘With me and my old age, I still stick to newspapers and magazines,” Ologundudu said. “But he’s talking about how now, with the young kids and young adults, social media is at the direction where news and businesses are being conducted.”
As someone who runs the CCN, Ologundudu knows that being an influencer is one of the most popular careers that people want to tend to, but it’s also one of the most difficult ones due to oversaturation, which is one of the reasons why he started the Content Creation Network.
“The reason why I started the club is because of people that want to get into social media,” Ologundudu said. “It’s difficult to navigate it by yourself, and when you’re doing it alone, it’s very difficult to spread your brand, spread your message, whether it’s music, whether it’s your business, whether it’s a clothing line, it’s hard to do it by yourself.”
He also adds that the purpose of the club is for Kean students to get together and make content so that they won’t get burnt out and have like-minded people join together.
Ologundudu incorporates social media into the CCN by promoting the members’ content on the Instagram page, @kean_ccn. For example, if someone were to make a TikTok video, Ologundudu would ask that person if he could post it on the CCN Instagram page and if they say yes, he would then post it on the page.
He also provides another example, this time an individual trying to promote their business.
“If someone has a business that they’re trying to promote, I’ll see the content that they make or the video that they made. I remember one of my friends, his name is Stephan, he makes rugs, and then a new member, he makes custom hats, so whenever they make content, I repost it on the page so that everyone can be represented,” Ologundudu explained.
As for his own experiences growing up with social media, Ologundudu says that he has learned a lot through social media. He explains how when he was ten, he would watch WoodysGamerTag, a content creator on YouTube that plays Call of Duty and gives life advice. Ologundudu would take his life advice and apply it to his life.
Ologundudu also used YouTube Academy, where he learned how to produce music and record. He watched YouTube videos on how to edit, as well as videos for entertainment value. He then pointed out how the trends always change, and how people who were popular back then fall off and a new generation comes in.
Ologundudu cites KingBach, a content creator who got his career start on Vine, a video-creating app that was founded by Twitter, as an example, and explained how there’s a new generation that’s taking his place.
For the Content Creation Network, Ologundudu’s goal is that once the members graduate, they will still be able to post and build their businesses. He always tells the small business owners in the club that if they continue to work, this could be their main career once they graduate. The same goes for the content creators in the club as well.
Ologundudu also adds that if members still focus on school, they can focus on school, and if they want to continue their passions, they can continue their passions if they want to.
Outside of the Content Creation Network and Kean, Ologundudu makes music content in his spare time.
Although he hasn’t been making much content lately, Ologundudu plans to start vlogging again, something that he used to do back in high school.
“One of my ideas is to just go into different restaurants and review the food, go to a food festival and review the foods, I think that’ll be fun,” Ologundudu said. “Currently I plan on getting back into music again and spreading that content.”