What do cat videos and commerce have in common? Well, nowadays it's social media! Check out this article I wrote about what leaders from the millennial generation will need to know about using social media in the workplace.

1. From Cat Videos to Commerce:
Millennial Leaders and Social Media
Laurie Haupt
Social media has exploded within the last decade,
radically changing the ways that people and
organizations communicate. Luckily, a new
generation of tech-savvy millennial leaders is
beginning to enter the workforce, bringing with
them their experience with social media. Anyone
can find millennials who know how to use
Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to post hilarious
cat videos or share their opinions about March
Madness. But, this generation may not have the
skills needed to deploy social media in professional
and leadership settings. If not, they will need to
learn to advance causes, take products to market,
and introduce new services via social media in
sophisticated ways.
To prepare for the future, millennial leaders must
understand (1) the significance of social media in
the future marketplace, (2) how they will need to
bridge the gap between their current social-media
skills and the skills they will need as professionals,
and (3) the challenges that they will face when
using social media in the context of the business
world.
The Significance of Social Media in
the Future Marketplace
The impact of social media on today’s global
marketplace is already apparent. However, social
media and its evolving forms will likely become an
even more integral part of business operations such
as management and marketing in the future. Not
only will the ranks of corporate executives be full of
millennial leaders, but their primary audience of
consumers will also be members of the millennial
generation who grew up knowing how to use social
media and receiving information primarily through
these platforms.
Many millennials are already disillusioned with
traditional marketing strategies, and not far into the
future, when millennials come to control the
majority of consumer wealth, millennial leaders will
need to learn how to effectively use social media to
resonate with millennial consumers.
The Six Social-Media Skills and
Bridging the Gap
Business experts Roland Deiser and Sylvain
Newton interviewed executives at General Electric
about social-media usage within GE, and in their
article, “Six Social-Media Skills Every Leader
Needs,” they summarize their findings into six skills
that make up “organizational media literacy.”1
As
seen in Figure 1, these skills are organized into
personal and organizational categories, which then
form a well-rounded approach to using social media
in leadership settings. Millennials already have the
foundations for these skills, but what will they need
to bridge the gap between their current media
literacy and the more sophisticated skills they will
need in the future?
Figure 1 Six Dimensions of Social-Media-Literate
Leadership
Source: Deiser, Roland and Sylvain Newton. "Six
Social-Media Skills Every Leader Needs." The McKinsey Quarterly. 2013.
62.

2. 2
Personal Literacy
The first category of skills described by Deiser and
Newton is personal media literacy. These skills
focus on a leader’s individual ability to produce,
distribute, and receive content and information
through social media channels.2
Producing Meaningful Content
Millennials are already skilled at producing creative
content—a glance at Youtube is sufficient evidence
of that. One of the millennial generation’s greatest
strengths is that they are not afraid to create content
that is personable and relatable. As Kevin Murray
says in his article “Why Leaders Should Use Social
Media,” published in London’s City A.M., “People
trust people, not institutions.”3
Millennials already
have this eagerness to produce content that is
genuine and reminds their audiences that everyone
is human.
Now, the trick is for millennial leaders to learn to
create meaningful, relatable content that also
produces specific managerial or marketing goals.
These kinds of tangible results, such as growth in
compound annual growth rates (CAGR) have
already been seen in today’s market, as illustrated in
Figure 2 below by data from Sitecore, a company
specializing in consumer experience management
and marketing.
Figure 2 Percent CAGR by Communication Style
As seen in Figure 2, leaders who connect with
consumers through an active online presence enjoy
compound annual growth rates three times higher
than firms that use traditional marketing and public
relations or that do not engage in any top-down
communication.4
Distributing
Distributing content through social media is much
different from traditional top-down communication.
Content like a blog post or a tweet moves in more
horizontal and fluid paths than traditional channels.
This fluid distribution pattern also translates into
less control of who receives certain content.5
Millennials are already used to sharing content like
pictures, status updates, and articles with large
networks of friends, but they will need to pay close
attention to two things when distributing content as
a leader. First, they will need to learn to target their
audience; second, they will need to be careful that
the content they produce is appropriate for viewers
outside their targeted audience. With the fluid,
random nature of social media, content is inevitably
distributed further than expected in many cases.6
Receiving
Millennials are well aware that the flood of
information from social media can sometimes be
overwhelming. While they most likely filter
incoming content in casual settings primarily by
personal interest, in leadership settings they will
need to instead filter information by the level of
impact it might have on their organization. Deiser
and Newton also remind leaders to take an active
and thoughtful role in responding to information
and messages, because that is where “acceptance of
or resistance to messages will be built.”7
Organizational Literacy
The second category of skills described by Deiser
and Newton is organizational media literacy.
These skills focus on a leader’s role in advising
employees, architecting appropriate organizational
systems, and analyzing current trends.8
Data Source: Dempsey, Steven. "The Business of Media: The
New, Effective Leadership in 140 Characters Or Fewer." Sunday
Business Post. July 21, 2013.

3. 3
“…Start small,
share updates
regularly, and
give your efforts
time to prove
their value.”12
-Karen Althen
Advising
Deiser and Newton emphasize that leaders play the
primary role in mentoring people and teaching them
how to appropriately use social media in
organizational settings.9
Millennial leaders will be
crucial in helping their co-workers who have less
experience with social media, but they will also
need to remain sensitive because, as consultant and
author Jan Ferri-Reed mentions:
They may view their older employees as
unimaginative, stuck in their ways, and wary
of technology. Of course, perceptions such
as these are generalizations…. Millennials
may also tend to underestimate their older
employees’ skills, knowledge, and
contributions to the workplace.10
Millennial leaders will need to have patience, while
at the same time trusting their co-workers and
employees. Marketing expert Karen Althen gives
this advice: “If your
leadership team is still
struggling to understand
social media, how to use
it, or why you should use
it, then start small, share
updates regularly and give
your efforts time to prove
their value.”11
Architecting
With the possible exception of recent startups and
the actual companies creating social media
platforms, the majority of organizations are not
designed with social-media use in mind. One of the
coming challenges for millennial leaders will be
integrating social-media communication into
existing organizational structures. This integration
may also include some organizational restructuring
in some cases, because social media “ensures that
chief executives have more than just a top-down
view of their organizations; they have an outside-in
one too.”12
Analyzing
Because situations involving social media can
change so rapidly, and because social media is itself
a rapidly changing method of communication,
leaders need to constantly analyze the effectiveness
of their organizations’ social-media use and stay up-
to-date on new communications technology and
platforms. Millennial leaders will be required not
just to follow, but also to anticipate trends. They
will likely be called upon to create new ways of
utilizing social media as they evaluate their
organizations’ needs.
The Challenges of Social Media
Finally, social media is a versatile tool, but the same
aspects of social media that make it so versatile also
raise a major concern: the risk of crises becoming
escalated through social media. According to a
study on social-media crises by Augustine Pang and
others, published in Corporate Communications,
“In the last ten years, incidents of online crises
reaching mainstream media have seen a ten-fold
increase.”13
These numbers will likely increase in
the years to come.
Again, millennial leaders will already have some
experience in managing online crises, just as with
other areas of social-media use. More than one
millennial has had an unfavorable photo of
themselves posted on Facebook or has dealt with
gossip or rumors spread by means of social media.
In the future, however, these leaders must be
prepared to deal with social-media crises that occur
on a much larger scale and that carry heavier
consequences if left unchecked.
According to the study from Pang et al,
...Sharing of user-generated content via
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs
enabled and empowered more people with
the capacity to demonstrate their
unhappiness with the organization, and
create organizational crises.14

4. 4
As illustrated in Figure 3, news spreads differently
in traditional media versus social media. This viral
spread is virtually impossible to control, which can
result in serious damage to an organization’s
reputation.
Figure 3 Content Dissemination in Traditional vs. Social
Media Channels
Image courtesy of Laurie Haupt
Due to differences in content dissemination,
millennial leaders must not only be prepared to
respond quickly to crises, but also be prepared to
respond in effective, responsible ways that preserve
the integrity of the organization. They must gain the
trust of their global audience through genuine acts
such as offering apologies or compensation and
responding to crises with honesty and
transparency.15
Conclusion
The gap from funny cat videos to influential,
responsible leadership in social-media settings is
significant. Future millennial leaders must take the
time to hone their current tech-savvy into
sophisticated social-media literacy. While social
media’s pervasiveness makes it an excellent tool for
fast, content-rich communication, it also brings
challenges that millennial leaders must be prepared
to face.
If millennials can bridge this gap, they will be
prepared to connect with their audiences in
powerful ways unimaginable just a few years ago,
as well as be the driving force behind future
innovations in communication.
Endnotes
1. Deiser, Roland and Sylvain Newton. "Six
Social-Media Skills Every Leader Needs." The
McKinsey Quarterly. 2013. 62.
2. Ibid., 65.
3. Murray, Kevin. “Why Leaders Should Use
Social Media. City A.M. Oct 22, 2014.
4. Dempsey, Steven. "The Business of Media:
The New, Effective Leadership in 140 Characters Or
Fewer." Sunday Business Post. July 21, 2013.
5. Deiser, Roland and Sylvain Newton. "Six
Social-Media Skills Every Leader Needs." The
McKinsey Quarterly. 2013. 65.
6. Ibid., 65.
7. Ibid., 65.
8. Ibid., 70.
9. Ibid., 64.
10. Ferri-Reed, Jan. "Preparing the Most
Techno-Savvy and Media-Social Generation to Lead."
Journal For Quality & Participation. 2013.1-3.
11. Althen, Karen. “Win at Social Media with
These 7 Key Insights.” The Business Journals. October
30, 2014. http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-
to/marketing/2014/10/win-at-social-media-with-these-
key-insights.html?page=all
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Pang, Augustine, Nasrath Begam Binte Abul
Hassan, and Aaron Chee Yang Chong. “Negotiating
Crisis in the Social Media Environment.” Corporate
Communications. 2014. 97.
15. Ibid., 104.
16. Ibid., 110.