Winning at social media: Moving from don'ts to do's
It's easy to find information about all the ways brands can use social media to their benefit. When it comes to kids, all I was seeing were the don'ts.
Posted — UpdatedAs I type these words, I am 37 weeks pregnant with my first child. It’s no surprise, then, that I have been thinking a lot about parenting recently. But, when it comes to social media, I’ve been thinking about parenting and childhood learning for much longer.
Three years ago, I started The Social Institute to bridge the gap between adults and teens as one of the nation’s leading pioneers in positive social media education. My passion for social began while playing field hockey for Duke University and volunteering to run the team’s Facebook page. The power of that platform to bring people to games and rally behind the team was awesome. It also kept the team connected — and SOCIAL — off the field as much as we were on the field.
What began as a hobby, turned into a career that took me to ESPN and McKinney, where I worked with world-class brands to harness the same power. Social media is the strongest reputation builder, after all. I’ve come to learn that it’s the biggest game in the world. And any smart and savvy brand plays to win.
It’s easy to find information about all the ways brands can use social media to their benefit.
When it comes to kids, all I was seeing were the don’ts: Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know, don’t join that group text, don’t use that platform, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see.
It got me thinking: Imagine if your coach told you only how NOT to throw, how NOT to block and how NOT to score, but expected you to win?
So, I started speaking at schools about the do’s of social media: how to know who to follow, when to block someone and ways to be the best version of yourself online. I call this “winning” at social. This month, The Social Institute's website launched, and our team is on a labor-of-love mission to help families around the country navigate social media positively.
Duke taught me a lot about leadership. The learning didn’t stop after graduation. While building the website, I came across this quote from Coach K: “Usually when you’re ruled, you never agree with all the rules, you just abide by them. But if you have standards and if everyone contributes to the way you’re going to do things, you end up owning how you do things.”
Every family technology contract we found online began “I will not …” and required only the child’s signature. Coach K’s approach inspired us to build a contract based on standards that both parents and children would sign.
But the company’s adoption of standards didn’t stop there. Our philosophy of positive social media education is also based on standards. Here’s a taste:
This is what social media education should look like, both in schools and at home. We risk depriving our kids of the skill to navigate one of the greatest influencers on their social development when we focus on rules that start with "don’t."
Share these standards or others with your family. Let’s all use this social power in our hands, perhaps the greatest power in the world, to do good. To win.
And if you need a coach, LMK.
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