How Millennials Pay It Forward via Facebook Friend Requests

When I say Twitter changed both my personal and business life I mean it and it continues to be a gateway for life-changing moments for me. I remember where I was when I got followed by @GaryVee on Twitter, I remember the moment Vala Afshar reached out and asked if I wanted to jump on a phone call and I remember being invited to a dinner by Jay Baer at a social media event because in his words “he wanted to get to know me more and say thank you for the support of his content.” Sadly so much of the conversation around social media today is about the negative impacts, the fake news and how millennials are a big part of the problem.

As a proud pager-wearing millennial keynote speaker I get the pleasure of debunking myths and translating “millennial habits” for brands shifting the perspective around generational labeling and in some cases, explaining that the stereotypes aren’t wrong.

But one of the millennial habits that I love to highlight and drive attention to is the fact that most millennials want to feel a part of something and are open about their desire to be mentored and celebrate those they look up too. In this same notion, millennials also are shifting what they consider a great leader as they believe it’s no longer just about your experience and knowledge rather your ability to educate those around you with that knowledge and experience. The other aspect of this millennial lead shift is thanks to social media the distance between those we look up to and those we consider our mentors has shrunk to being as little as 280 characters away or in this case a suggested Facebook friend request..

Before I get into what happened over the last 48 hours let me set the stage for why this is so magical and important. For me reading two books Jay Baer’s YouTility and Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab Jab Jab Right Hook transformed my philosophy around social media helping me adopt my mantra of #ShowUcare. #ShowUCare was my community and content strategy from giving my content away for free, engaging and caring about every person that engages with me no matter their follower count and probably most importantly going out of my…