MBA students learn the role of social media business and personal life

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Sree Sreenivasan is a leading social and digital media consultant and trainer, working with nonprofits, startups, companies and executives around the world. He took time out of his travels and busy schedule to speak with OSU MBA students about business and social media.

“Social media is tantalizingly easy to start,” Sreenivasan said. “But it is difficult to master. I work to create thumb-stoppers as people are scrolling through their social media newsfeeds.”

Sreenivasan started by explaining his three ABCs with students. These are, always be charging, always be connecting, and always be collecting.

Always be charging refers to keeping your mobile device and your computer charged. They have portable chargers just for this reason to make it easier to always keep your device alive. These devices are important for our social network and allowing us to be connected to others and the world around us.

Always be connecting refers to not only be connecting with people on your social network websites, but always try to connect with people in person. When you are around people or interacting with them, make a connection. Then you can have more people in your network.

Lastly, always be collecting your ideas and experiences. This is easy to do in one place with your mobile devices. You can store notes and images in the palm of your hand or even to the cloud.

Sreenivasan stresses the importance of frequently reaching out to people just to say hello and maintain that connection. Make the connection, and then follow up.

“You don’t want to reach out to someone just when you need something,” Sreenivasan said. “Don’t let the first time you reach out to someone be when you are asking for something, maintain that connection so the response comes easier.”

Sreenivasan also shared about LinkedIn and the role it plays in society today.

“LinkedIn is such a valuable resource for people today,” Sreenivasan said. “It should be used as something more than just as a job search tool.”

He suggests people post at least once per week and connect with people you have some interest in what they do as a career or in life. He likes that LinkedIn is not about popularity because once you make it to 500 connections, it will not show the number of connections you have. This can be more of a way to focus on content rather than the number of followers.

Then, Sreenivasan talks about the role of storytelling in social media and business. It is also important how you create your content, so you must think about how your audience is consuming the content, and create it by that. Is it in print, television or on a small screen?

“I believe the future of all business is storytelling,” Sreenivasan said. “This is what I wanted to do when I developed social media content while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” 

These points really resonated with student Rachel Nichols, who shared why these statements really stuck with her.

“The future of business is storytelling,” Nichols said. “I liked this quote because of the emphasis on humanizing business to engage your audience.”

He has served as Chief Digital Officer of New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University, where he was a full-time professor of journalism for more than 20 years.

He taught a course on entrepreneurship at Columbia University for four years with Ken Lerer, the co-founder of Huffington Post, chairman of Buzzfeed and co-founder of venture firm LererHippeau.

Sree is the creator of three popular social media learning opportunities that have been attended by thousands of attendees in the U.S., India and more than a dozen other countries: Social Media Weekend, Social Media Day and Social Media One-Night Stand.

“Almost everyone will miss almost everything you do on social media,” Sreenivasan said. “Unless you make a mistake.” 

In 2015, Fast Company named him one of the 100 most creative people in business, and in 2010, he was named one of the 35 most influential people in social media by the Poynter Institute. In 2014, he was named most influential CDO by CDO Club. In 2012, he named to a seed list of the 100 most important journalists of the past century by Unity: Journalists of Color. In 2004, Newsweek named him one of the 20 most influential South Asians in the U.S., along with Jhumpa Lahiri, M. Night Shyamalan and Norah Jones, among others.

Join his Facebook Group, Sree’s Advanced Social Media: http://bit.ly/sreefbadvanced

By Taylor Mullan