CSUN On Point

Starting a business has never been an easy task. In this day and age, it can be argued that it is becoming increasingly difficult. However, this new generation of business owners has found a way to benefit from social media, by using it to build brand awareness much more easily. Regardless, succeeding with a small business is still a tall task, requiring more than just brand awareness in this new age of entrepreneurship.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says about 20 percent of small businesses fail within their first year. By the end of the fifth year, roughly 50 percent of small businesses have failed. After 10 years, only about one in three is still around.

For those who are able to make it past the first year, it’s not the easiest thing to get off to a running start.

“It’s not like Field of Dreams, [where] if you build it, they’re just gonna show up,” Opulen Studios owner Christiana Lucratif said. “It’s marketing, and trying to get everybody to spread the word. One of the biggest things was just being willing to take the risk, and just dive in.”

In this new era, the use of social media has become one of the biggest tools for entrepreneurs as they try to find new customers and partners, and then keep them. A 2017 survey of marketers showed that 66 percent of internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 are more loyal to the brands they follow on social media.

“We’re scrolling on Instagram, or whatever it may be,” Scarlet’s Addiction founder Sadee Mondino said.  “I know I have to use it all day because of what I do for a living. That’s how I find most of the brands I want to work with. That’s how I find people I want to work with.”

However, an online presence can’t be the end all be for these aspiring entrepreneurs.

“If Instagram were to shut down, [you’d have to ask], ‘can you still stay in business and how are you exporting those followers and those customers to your actual CRM (Customer Relationship Management)’,” said Lucratif. “That’s why I do a lot of the marketing directly through my own text messages and emails, versus just social media. And then people that I do find on social media, [I work on]  gathering their contact information, and putting them into my database.”

Moderator: Monica Campos

Producer: Lauren Cienfuegos

Anchor: Kenia Arevalo

Social Media Editor: Zaira Garcia

Reporters: Kenia Arevalo, Monica Campos, Alan Cardoza,  Lauren Cienfuegos, Zaira Garcia, Kimberly Lopez Chavez and Demothy Tien

Nowadays, some young girls are living their lives through their social media pages.

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram, these teens and pre-teens are updating their pages and hoping they get likes, comments and follows. Sometimes there are great comments, a lot of likes, and thousands of follows, but there may also be bullying and degrading going on.

“Now I think students are getting more savvy with technology,” high school counselor Jessica Estrada said. “And they’re getting more brave, and they’re being meaner, because they’re able to hide behind a screen, [and] say what they want to say.”

Some teens are also relying more heavily on social media to create images of themselves that they may think are the images people want to see, but those images may be based on traditional and limiting stereotypes of women.

“I think that it’s really empowering, on some level, to be able to have the means with which to produce yourself, and distribute yourself to the world,” said CSUN Communication Studies Professor Gina Giotta. “But on the other hand, I think we’ve been compelled to produce ourselves and to author ourselves in ways that are often times consistent with those previous representations that were produced for us by the mass media…We don’t have a lot of other scripts besides those media have offered to us.”

Some educators said social media are also affecting the way young people write.

“A lot of the English teachers in my school are complaining about…text language, [for example] putting LOL [for ‘laugh out loud’], and IKR for ‘I know, right’,” Estrada said. “They’re using little acronyms, [and] we’re supposed to be graduating these kids to be college ready.”

But educators and parents said it may be impossible to take social media away from young people at this point.

“I think they’d eventually learn how to live without it, but it’s such an addiction that I don’t know that [you could abolish it]…I think they’d struggle with that,” Estrada said.

“I’m not a doctor,” Giotta said, “but I do know that people can survive without social media. People did it for centuries, so I think it’s a possibility.”

Moderator: Melanie Rosales

Producers: Angela Bickmann and Marissa Martinez

Anchor: Jesyka Dunn

Social Media Editor: Karin Abcarians

Reporters: Karin Abcarians, Angela Bickmann, Jesyka Dunn, Marissa Martinez and Melanie Rosales

Many Millennials are finding it difficult to gain full independence and purchase homes. Steadily becoming the most prominent demographic of people in America, they have surpassed the Baby Boomer generation by around 8 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet Millennials earn 20 percent less than their parents’ generation. Forty-two percent of people age 18-34, according to the Pew Research Center, are living with their parents, which is the highest level since 1940.

“[It’s] the availability of jobs,” said Craig T. Olwert, CSUN Professor of Urban Studies and Planning. “Most of the millennials haven’t found well-paying jobs to help cover the costs [of home ownership]. I think with the recession finally really recovering on the job side, we’re going to see that start changing.”

California Association of Realtors Research Analyst Azad Amir-Ghassemi said the way residences are changing hands is shifting. “We’re going to go into a European model of homeownership,” he said, “where Baby Boomers have their homes, and then they transfer their homes down to their kids.”

Getting a higher education may lower some millennials’ ability to purchase a home. A survey by Amir-Ghassemi found that as many as 25 percent of millennials said that their student loans are keeping them out of home ownership.

The notoriously high cost of living in Southern California only makes matters more challenging.

“The average price of real estate here in Southern California is $472,000,” Sales Manager of Global Premiere Properties Adam Arteaga said. “And to qualify for a home loan like that, you’re looking at an income of almost $90,000.”

That qualification will be difficult for those without good credit. “Usually the banks like to look for a FICO score of about 650 and above,” Arteaga said.

The cost to rent in the Los Angeles area is also becoming not feasible. Research and analysis firm Axiometrics shows the average monthly rate for a one-bedroom apartment in L.A. County is $2,300, and the Inland Empire, it’s over $1,500.

But Arteaga said the situation is looking less dismal than in years prior. “Forty-five percent of all houses sold last year were [to] first-time homebuyers. For what rents are going for right now, you can almost obtain a home mortgage for that.”

Moderator: Noemi Salcedo

Producer: Dana Lites

Anchor: Flor Tolentino

Social Media Editors: Dana Lites and Char’Tre Steward

Reporters: Trevor Edwards, Dana Lites, Cynthia Marin, Noemi Salcedo, Char’Tre Steward and Flor Tolentino

Moderator – Scott Sanders

Anchor – Gabrielle Ortega

Producer – Danielle Pendleton

Social Media Editors – Sophie Ashley and Alexandra Chidbachian

Reporters – Sophie Ashley, Alexandra Chidbachian, Gabrielle Ortega, Danielle Pendleton, Scott Sanders and Joshua Spidel