By Katja Schroeder, Expedition PR
According to the Kaufman Foundation, about 85% of all new jobs in the nation stem from entrepreneurial ventures. Companies like Google, Facebook, Reddit and FedEx proved that companies can successfully be started during college. Founding a company does not require a stint in the corporate world. It can happen any time when you have the right idea. And, large corporations are also now looking for employees with an entrepreneurial spirit, to drive creativity and promote a “can-do” attitude. But an idea is not enough. Entrepreneurs, especially student entrepreneurs, need help with financing, operations, HR, and marketing.
Committed to assisting Brooklyn’s and New York City’s entrepreneurs, St. Francis College launched the SFC Center for Entrepreneurship. The center is providing classes, tools and academic research to support budding and existing entrepreneurs in the city. The first cohort of 18 students started this semester to learn the fundamentals of creating and running a business.
I met the inaugural class of the Entrepreneurship Center last week to give a talk on how startups can use social media marketing.
At the beginning of each class, I typically survey what types of social media channels the students are familiar with. Millennials are the Facebook generation. 99%-100% of the students in my class are on Facebook to connect with their friends and family. They get their news on Facebook and YouTube, as opposed to newspapers. About 30-50% use Twitter and Instagram. Less than 5% are familiar with Pinterest and location-based applications like Foursquare. Even less students, about 1-2 in each class, use LinkedIn. No big bloggers or Yelpers, so far.
While budding student entrepreneurs have a great opportunity to apply their experience with using social media for their personal life to marketing their business, they asked the same question as any other entrepreneurs: How do I best use social media to engage with my customers? And, how do I start developing a good social media strategy?
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