The Media & Entertainment industry often goes hand in hand with media channels being owned and operated by the same companies that produce major influential television shows and movies. After attending dozens of seminars involving conversations about the industry with people who have been in the game for decades, there is a question that gets asked surprisingly often, and it usually goes something like:
“How important is social media” or “should I care about social media?”
And the most surprising thing to me is this question comes from people who are in the media & entertainment industry (often at different levels). I’d personally like to understand where this question comes from a bit better. And perhaps the questioner might just be phrasing the question wrong, or not digging down to figure out the answer to the question they really want to know deep down. Examples I can think of include: “how much time should I invest into social media,” or “I can barely figure out how to connect to WiFi, how can I possibly master social media?”
I compare this question of whether social media is important to those in the media and entertainment industry, to asking if a new way of extracting oil that is less harmful to the environment is useful to an oil company. Or whether new and innovative online education platforms (some of which are free) are important to the advancement of education in our society.
Instead of sharing my opinion or knowledge on whether social media should or should not be used, I came up with a very specific archetype of a person who does not need to bother with social media.
And of course, there are many archetypes of people who do not need to bother with social media because after all, we have reached where we are today as a society after thousands of many millennia without social media as it is today. There are billions of people around the world who are getting around without social media just fine. So here is just one archetype example of a type of person who does not even need to bother with social media, and then I will explain why.
An incredibly wealthy person in a very wealthy family, who may or may not take an active part in the family business, who can contact just about any important person they need to do business with. This person could have a team of people managing their social media or have plenty of employees who work for them. This person is also very comfortable in their current position, and could likely be very comfortable in the future. Also, they might have projects that they might want to keep under wraps such as those developing pharmaceutical products or government contracts.
Why such a specific person?
I know family members, friends, managers, and plenty of successful executives who do not use social media. The big timers pop up on the news occasionally. Examples like those might perfectly justify the idea that people can do great without social media. And what about all the small local businesses and mom and pop shops that still thrive after decades without social media? Surely those are prime examples that social media isn’t useful for everyone.
I understand this justification. There are many people who are very comfortable where they are, and small businesses that are doing just fine without hopping on the social media bandwagon. There are also some highly successful business leaders, and even entertainment professionals who might not use social media for reasons such as the team they pay around them is already the masters of managing their public personas.
And even for those successful entertainers who do not use social media, know that there are random people who are creating those social media profiles for them even without their permissions. That is not necessarily a reason anyone should use social media, but it does explain the level of professional achievement that one might need to attain before deciding they don’t need it.
It isn’t too difficult to find the houses and businesses of
