How to Reach Young People in Social Media? (Theme 3)

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BLOG THEME 3: How do social workers reach young people in social media?  - Social work with young people (13-25 years old) as target group in different social media platforms 


Social media influencers

Before our lesson I could not name many of social media influencers that tries to reach young people. I knew that Terapeutti Ville (therapist Ville) makes Tik Tok videos and try to make young people feel comfortable about future and answers some questions in life. Ville is not only making Tik Tok videos, but he is also a politician and works in Finnish parliament.  

Before our lesson I did not know who was laakari.atte but I checked his profile in social media. In his Tik Tok profile he gives information and facts about the harmful things/habits that young people uses f.ex. nicotine and also some other health related information. In my opinion he tries to share his knowledge about health and so that young people would feel well and not use dangerous substances. He has almost 100 000 followers and over 2 million likes in his videos. I also checked how he interacts with his commenters and he really comments/replies like he is one of the young people and uses words that they use. In this way he can get very close to young people and affect to their way of thinking.  

I browsed for a while in laakari.atte Tik Tok profile and I found his videos interesting. Laakari.atte said a thing about the social media in one of his Tik Tok videos that made me really think:  


“Social media services are not charity, companies behind them does not think about your health but they are interested in business. Their goal is that you use as much time in their platform as possible because they can get money from that. If something is free, most likely you are the product. ”

-laakari.atte /tiktok


Sita Salminen is also doing content to Tik Tok and Instagram that reaches young people. I personally like her content because she uses calming and hopeful voiceovers in her videos. I think her videos gives hope for the future especially for young people.

 
How can the social professional /educator reach the young target group? 

In my opinion as social media and different platforms are fast growing, Tik Tok and Instagram are platforms where social professionals can reach young people well. Influencers I mentioned previously are easily approachable and that is what young people want! Young people need understanding, no judgement, guidance in difficult and ordinary moments of life, because not everyone can find a support network.

 
  
What would you do if the goal would be to decrease bullying? What kind of platform would you use? 

How amazing it would be if I could stop the bullying all by myself! I think that is not possible for me to stop all the bullying in the World but of course there is ways to prevent it.  

What came to my mind was that in different platforms we could use trending celebrities because they could get very close to young people when talking about bullying and their experiences. Also different types of campaigns that spread awareness about bullying could work. These types of campaigns would work well in Tik Tok. It would also be amazing that there would be information how/where to find help and also some people that could share their own stories – this could inspire and leads to seeking help at a lower threshold.  


 -Jessica Lahtinen  








Photo: https://freerangestock.com/photos/77689/woman-holding-smart-phone.html

Comments

  1. Ranjita PuriFebruary 14, 2025 at 3:24 AM

    very informative post

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chamarika nuwandiFebruary 17, 2025 at 11:13 AM

    your opinion on this theme was very useful and informative

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarina ThapaliyaFebruary 17, 2025 at 11:21 AM

    I really appreciate how you addressed this topic. Your perspective adds so much to the conversation.

    ReplyDelete

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