Interview with Chanelle Schneider, Millennial Specialist
With all the studying being done on Millennials, Firebelly decided to interview one of the top Millennial specialist, Chanelle Schneider. Chanelle is a freelance social media manager, the founder of #GenYChat, and currently works as the community director at My Rising Tide.
1. What do you think makes Millennials different?
The over 80 million of us were born with qualities that make some of us have a desire to transform our realities by travelling beyond traditional boundaries. Others among us are natural comedians who share our opinions on social networking sites while working to better society through fostering harmonious relationships. If you think of us as a circle in a Venn diagram, however, you’ll see that we can share these characteristics with Baby Boomers and GenX’ers. What differentiates Millennials, though, is the world in which we’ve come of age. So, our tech savvy is with digital tools. We watch television with a few hundred of our closest friends on Twitter; we call when we’re ten minutes away; and, we actually like labels when we give them to ourselves.
2. Are there misnomers about Millennials that you work to dispel? Can you elaborate on these?
Let’s start with the misnomer “Millennial”, which actually pertains to Millennium. We reach a new generation approximately every 21 years. A new millennium comes every 1000 years.
3. Recommendations on qualities of communications that brands should utilize with Millennials?
Brands should optimize their communication based on demographic and psychographic analyses of their target audience. A brand should always consider that their target believes higher quality means higher faith in the product. If the brand doesn’t believe in it, why should they?
4. Are Millennials early adopters of technology?
Not entirely. There are Millennials who have never used an e-reader. Being an early adopter of technology is behavioral and, usually, an indication of a certain economic status as opposed to generational.
5. Where are Millennials likely to find their information?
When I was growing up, I was told to “Look it up” when I asked a question. Today, I ask a search engine. Other sources of information include social networking sites. We are much more likely to trust information that comes from our personal networks. As the Community Manager for My Rising Tide, I’m working to develop a community for motivated people in need of access to the knowledge and tools needed on their path to success. We’re partnering with career and life coaches, HR professionals, subject matter experts, and like-minded peers to provide real-time insight via Twitter chats and actionable advice via articles. Our brand ambassadors are Millennials with amazing, inspiring success stories. This burgeoning community dispels misconceptions of young people every day by earning each accomplishment and giving back to their community in the process. Right now we’re on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We will have our own website up soon and will look to broaden our presence as our community grows.
Make sure to follow Chanelle on twitter for more information on Millennials and #GenYChat, a concept-based chat the discusses ideas for improving communication between different generations.
Has Social Media Changed The College Experience For The Better?
I stumbled across a blog post a few weeks ago about how social media was ruining the traditional college experience. To me this seemed like a bold statement and more a matter of opinion. A large percentage of millennials are in college or heading to college this fall – it is interesting to think about how the generation with the highest social media consumption is experiencing college differently. The integration of social media is inevitable and offers some enhancement to the experience.
1. Finding Roommates
Pot luck. The greatest fear of any pre-freshman student. What could be worse than arriving to your new college dorm and having an awful roommate? Thank you to Facebook going pot luck is no longer a problem. Most colleges now have Facebook pages for incoming freshman classes to exchange information and search for a potential roommate. This enables students to get to know a potential roommate, and maybe Facebook stalk a bit, before making any final decisions.
2. University Apps
I went to IU Bloomington my freshman year of college and the IU app saved me. It provided everything from my class schedule and locations, bus schedules, sporting events, meal point tracking, and where the printers were located on that huge campus. The app was a great resource for an incoming freshman and a way to stay connected to the large university mobiley.
3. Staying Connected
One of the hardest things about going to college is being separated from old friends and family. As exciting as heading off to create a new identity is, it can be difficult to leave your friends and family behind. I was blessed that many of my friends went to IU, but was devastated to be separated from my best friend who was attending Ball State. Lucky for me there was Facebook, Twitter, Skype and tex to help us stay connected and involved in each other’s lives.
4. Getting Involved
It is important and exciting to get involved in campus activities, clubs and events. When I was at IU, I was involved in student run clubs, external volunteer work and attended many university productions. I became aware of these events and opportunities through Facebook. Friends would share a performance or an opportunity to come to a club call out meeting. Without the use of social networking sites I would have been much less aware of the activities going on around campus and would have met a lot less people my freshman year.
In all, social media enhanced my college experience – created ease in transitioning to a new place, while still being able to be connected to home. It helped me get involved in the community and meet new people. While social media is capable of causing more distractions in class, we are all adults in college and should have the sense to know better.
Facebook Graph Search Optimization: 5 Must-Reads
What should you do to optimize your Facebook page for Graph Search? Find out in these 5 must-reads.
What Facebook Graph Search Means for Your Business
By Kelly Jo Horton Graph search is Facebook’s social solution for connected search. It is a search algorithm that delivers results based on connecting the dots in the mountains of data Facebook has collected from its billion users. Results are served up based on relevancy and relationship rather than keywords. So what does this mean for your Facebook brand page? It means it’s time for businesses to get social, and I do mean social.
Graph Search Optimization: The New SEO and What it Means for Social Advertisers
By Todd Herrold While Facebook hasn’t revealed the exact formula it uses to determine Graph Searching of content (they did provide a look “under the hood” which marketers may find helpful), we can identify several factors which likely impact Graph Search rankings.
How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Facebook Graph Search
By Andrea Vahl As Facebook Graph Search rolls out to more users, marketers are exploring different ways to use it. This article will help you increase your exposure in Facebook Graph Search.
5 Tips for Facebook Graph Search Optimization
By Christopher Penn It should take almost no time for Graph Search Optimization companies to spring up overnight for optimizing your marketing programs for Graph Search. I’ll save you some time with a few simple guidelines based on what Facebook has revealed.
Graph Search Optimization: What Facebook’s Social Search Means for Brands
By Max Gladwell With the introduction of Facebook search aka Graph Search, brands with multiple locations will soon find their Facebook strategy turned on its head. Which is to say that the value of marketing on Facebook is about to shift dramatically and disproportionately from the brand level to the local level for these types of companies.
Firebelly Goes To The 2013 TechPoint Mira Awards Gala
Saturday, April 20 was the 2013 TechPoint Mira Awards – Firebelly was named a finalist in Marketing Technology Excellence & Innovation category . We are honored to be named one of “The Best Of Tech In Indiana” among the tech greats of Indiana. Check out Duncan’s video, where he talks about being a finalist in a recent blog post: Firebelly Is A 2013 TechPoint Mira Awards Finalist.
The evening began with a lovely cocktail and interactive dinner at the JW Marriott in Downtown Indianapolis. The Grand Ballroom was bustling with people dressed to the nines in tuxedos and satin gowns – very Oscars-esq. You could feel the excitement and anticipation in the air as the who’s who of tech greeted each other. TechPoint really pulled out all the stops this year with the silent auction items, a step and repeat for team photos, the ice sculpture, dinner, award ceremony and the after-party with cocktails, music and dancing.
Even though we were not named the winner, it is a true honor to be nominated for this prestigious award. Congratulations to Angie’s List – our hats go off to you for being named this year’s winner of the TechPoint Marketing Technology Excellence & Innovation Award.
At the end of the day – it’s still about telling a great story, knowing your audience – and communicating effectively – in our case we use the latest, advanced technology to help us deliver strong results to our clients. On behalf of all my team members, I want to thank Duncan – your vision, tenacity and courage have kept us independent, relevant, and successful!
To see the complete list of the 2013 TechPoint Mira Awards winners, click here: www.techpoint.org/mira.
Millennials And The Need To Stay Connected
Millennials do not want to miss anything – we check our phones as soon as we are awake, clutch them all day, and finally fall asleep after a nightly update. For millennials, checking social media is as routine as brushing our teeth or eating dinner. Millennials have a need to be connected and fulfill this through constantly texting, updating social networking sites, and responding to emails via smartphone.
InsightExpress conducted a survey of how millennials use social networking and mobile devices to stay connected. Here are some interesting things that were found:
1. One in five millennials check their smartphone for email, text, and social media updates at least every 10 minutes (two in five in the U.S.).
When I first read this fact I actually thought it should be higher because I check my smartphone constantly. I am always waiting to receive important emails from work and school, texts from friends, and updates from my favorite brands I follow on Twitter and Instagram.
2. 40% of respondents go through ‘withdrawal’ effect and feel as if something is missing when not checking their smartphone constantly.
I actually see this sometimes with my friends. I have seen my friends leave parties to get their phone charger or get irritated because their phone is about to die. Millennials use their smartphones for everything and without them there are feelings of loss, emptiness, and vulnerability.
3. 70% of millennials said mobile applications are important to their daily lives.
Instagram, Twitter, and SnapChat are big mobile applications used among my friends. My friends are constantly updating Twitter, uploading photos to Instagram, and sending SnapChats all the time – in class, at parties, and when traveling. Even more interesting, SnapChat has almost replaced texting between my friends and I.
