LAWRENCE, Kansas – Some people are fast learners. Others are not. As the number of Baby Boomers engaging in social media rises, I’m finding more and more how little my parents’ generation understands the new interpretations of some classic technologies. My generation, particularly the twenty-and-thirtysomethings, seem to understand it better. But even among people my age, not everyone gets the newest incarnations of social media like “microblogs,” a term that barely does it justice, most notably Twitter.

The most import thing to understand with a thing like Twitter, unlike with e-mail or even a cell phone, is that it functions much like the news cycle. Part of the appeal of Twitter is that it’s an instantaneous, steady flow of information. It is, in effect, one huge group conversation. And, as with any conversation, timing is everything. If you wait too long to comment on something someone has said, then it will be too late. The moment will have passed. If you limit yourself to talking only with a small group, you’ll never meet anyone new.

There’s no real training course for people who haven’t done it before, and it’s an unforgiving sink-or-swim environment. If you do social media wrong, then it’s worse than not doing it in the first place.

For businesses, a platform like Twitter illustrates not only a transparency, but also a sense that they are very much in touch.  However, entering this virtual world without understanding the laws that govern it will achieve an extraordinarily opposite result. Kind of like a guy in 2009 who goes to a club and hits the dance floor, pulling out his Saturday Night Fever or even MC Hammer moves. He would have been better off staying home.

The broadest age demographic – basically anyone over 30 – is entering these platforms without being nearly as familiar with the technologies that preceded it, putting them at a huge disadvantage compared to their younger counterparts. This is the very reason more business professionals haven’t latched on to social media as a whole: they simply don’t get it.

Sure, there are exceptions, particularly on a more national level. But it’s at the local level, in fields where there is no budget to devote to social media, that most opportunities are lost.

There are the older business owners who don’t even bother and those who attempt to go the do-it-yourself route. What many of them forget is that they never immersed themselves into text messaging or Facebook, two predecessors whose best attributes are combined in the Twitter platform. And, for many, the significance of all of the above is lost.

First, it’s vital to understand that social media isn’t just “old” media gone digital. A podcast is not just a radio show without an antenna; a blog is not just a newspaper column read on a screen; and e-mail is not just a digital letter. Each is a new medium in itself, and one must understand and appreciate that in order to make the most of them.

What makes new media different from the old? It’s all about connecting people and content instantly. Cross-references have been replaced by hyperlinks, physical offices by websites, mailing addresses by e-mail addresses. The information is always on and it’s always changing. Once people understand that, then they are ready to begin.

These are very powerful tools to those who know how to use them.

Filed under: Opinion/Editorial, Social Media, Technology