To the old, new social networks hard to pin down

Last Thursday, a couple of my friends and I were asked to appear in a news segment for CNN. What hard-hitting story marked my national television debut? No, it wasn’t an in-depth commentary on Harry Potter—it was a piece on not-so-new social media sensation, Pinterest.
Pinterest is the youngest member of the social network family, an invite-only site where users can “pin” pictures that they find on other sites or “repin” pins that appear on their newsfeed. Users can comment, like, and repin to personalized “boards” that categorize all the different pins. I equate this to a highly organized bookmarking method—a way to easily find that recipe for jalepeño macaroni and cheese or those shoes from Madewell. Women have long read fashion and lifestyle magazines, folding down the pages of things that appeal to them, things they want, or things they want to come back to at some point. Pinterest takes this casual browsing to another level by making it web-based, with the ability to share with like-minded friends.
When the camera crew arrived at a friend’s house to film real college girls in their element, pinning up a storm, we had no idea what the premise or spin of the story would be. Still, I had a hunch that the site’s explosive surge in popularity had instigated it. There are currently about 10 million users, and invites are being requested at such a frenzied rate that they have gotten backed up.
It was clear from the beginning of the shoot that the approach to the story lacked a basic understanding of social media, exemplified when it was later entitled “The Politics of Pinterest.” We were asked a slew of questions that exposed this out-of-touch-ness. Would we start using Pinterest more than Facebook or Twitter? Would it one day replace other social media platforms? Would a political candidate using Pinterest spark any interest and support?
Yet again, this was an example of an older generation attempting to understand my generation’s use of social media platforms. The shoot was much like when our parents call and ask us how to upload photos to Facebook, or what a hashtag stands for, and we roll our eyes. This is a personal call to anyone attempting to condense this social media “thing”—you need to realize that Millenials’ use of social media cannot be pegged down or compartmentalized, especially by those who have no understanding of the technology themselves.
First, older people need to understand that our generation has no qualms about existing on multiple platforms of social media. We have Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and maybe, for some, Google+. We generally do not replace one with another, and most do not have any problem simply adding one to the mix. Our interviewer informed us that social media experts have predicted that Pinterest will come out on top, edging out Facebook and Twitter as the preeminent social media tool. We laughed. Who exactly are these experts?
Older folks need to realize that each platform is substantially different. Our interviewer mentioned the notion that the picture-based nature of Pinterest is a muddling down of our form of web expression. He said that Facebook posts have been watered down to 140 characters on Twitter, and finally all we have are pictures—implying that this is just a microcosm of the dumbing down of website content and our attention spans. This gross generalization reveals the misunderstanding that all social media platforms are similar in goal and use. Facebook is for your social life online, Twitter is for the especially vocal and text-based sharing, and Tumblr is a more focused microblog for the slightly geekier and Internet-obsessed. Now, Pinterest is for shared interests, craft ideas, interior design envy, and shopping wish lists. The social media “race” is non-existent.
As for political candidates who want to connect with the general population through social media, they need to reconsider where to put their efforts. Using social media is a great cost-effective marketing mechanism that manifests itself in truly genius ways sometimes, but only sometimes. Some platforms work better than others for a specific person or organization. Online news sources make sense on Twitter, as do celebrities and brands. They can even survive through “liking” on Facebook, although to a lesser degree, since Facebook is about a social community. Fashion and lifestyle blogs, which are inherently picture based, do very well and make more sense on Pinterest. No one is selling himself or herself on Pinterest; they are selling other people’s objects, tastes, and trends.
Instead of seeing all social media platforms as the same breed, people need to differentiate between them for the benefit of marketers and users alike. It is the very different nature of Pinterest that has caused it, according to the Guardian, to increase in popularity while usage of Google+ has decreased. Google+ was too much overlap—we already had our lives on Facebook and our interesting articles on Twitter. Pinterest is something new, in the guise of old hobbies and habits. So here is my advice for those on the outside trying to break into the world of social media for their own benefit: instead of attempting to belittle our intelligence and pigeonhole us into dumbed-down stereotypes, try and engage a generation that is used to having access to pretty much anything through a simple Google search.