Social Media: What’s The Big Deal?

Social media has changed the culture of the Internet around the world. It has allowed for an instant spread of information, the culmination of new and exciting relationships, and helped small businesses expand their network and build closer relationships with their customers, but what are the disadvantages of these numerous social networking sites?

The popularity of social networking sites went viral and, according to ProCon.org, more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2009. TechCrunch posted an article highlighting that Facebook houses over 900 Million users, Twitter housing over 200 Million users and LinkedIn reaching above 150 Million users. It’s been reported that most of these users are accessing these social media sites via their mobile phone. So now we don’t even need a computer to “stay connected”.

In the business realm, 2008 showed about $2.4 million in US advertising on social networking sites with advertising expenditures expected to increase as much as $2.6 Billion by 2012. As more and more users log on, it’s only natural for more and more businesses to get involved and try to reach their target in new and innovative ways. If you’re a small business who has yet to jump on the social media bandwagon, then you’re missing out on an extremely large opportunity in terms of exposing your business to over a Billion users, building a brand and presence among the endless ocean that is the Internet, and building Quality relationships with your customers, which in turn makes them loyal and keeps them coming back for more!

If your business is already employing a social media campaign, you may want to consider how effective it really is. How are you connecting with your customers? Are you connecting at all? Or are you just marketing your business? How is your brand perceived? Are you tracking the web traffic and insights on your social media pages?

The main reason these sites have become so popular among our fellow humans is that they allow for a creative expression that has never been available to us before; the opportunity to create something of our own and share it with millions of people. Before social media, this was possible on the internet, but only those with the expertise to build a blog or website and market it effectively had the privilege of being heard.

Social media has brought together people with a common interest or working towards a common cause. According to procon.org, 60 million Americans received help with major life issues in 2006 (changing jobs, finding a place to live, buying a car, caring for illness, etc.). Some studies have shown that being part of a social network has a positive impact on life in general such as an increased quality of life or a reduction in the risk of health problems.

It never hurts to grow your network, and logically, users of social networking sites have larger networks and support systems than non-users, complimenting their offline social networks instead of replacing them.

A Nielson report in 2011 showed that Americans spend 23% of their time on social networking sites! Doing what? Most likely less productive activities and more time wasting activities.

Many businesses are losing productivity, and in turn a lot of money, to employees using work time for personal social networking exploration. Way back in 2007, workers in Australian businesses were costing around $4.5 billion (US) per year! In 2009, UK businesses were losing about $12.5 billion (US) annually! Similarly, about two-thirds of US workers with Facebook accounts are accessing the site during working hours. Although it may give workers a break from reality during the workday, it’s costing businesses a pretty penny. A solution may be for people to find a job where they don’t need a break from reality.

A more immediate solution may be to use a program called Anti-Social. You can find that here at www.Anti-Social.cc. Once you download this program, you can specify how long you want to be blocked from social media sites. The only way to turn it off is to reboot your entire system. If you go out of your way to reboot your computer system because a few minutes away from the social media world is eating away at your soul, you may have a bigger problem than productivity on your hands.

Employ this program! You’ll be surprised at how much you can get done when you aren’t watching auto-tune videos: See Five Guys Dayum.

Because social networking sites encourage the sharing of information, there are certain security concerns involved with both the creation of your profiles and companies that are managing them. By posting a large portion of your personal information on these pages, it entices cyber criminals to gather your information, which can be used to steal your identity. Even more frightening is the cases reported of someone posting that they were on vacation only to come back to an empty home. Criminals were alerted of the plans to leave the house and broke in to take advantage of an unattended home.

Setting your privacy preferences is not always a surefire safety plan either. Security attacks are not difficult on many sites including hacks, the leaking of information, the spread of Trojan viruses, not to mention the direct spam and virus messages sent through the inbox. Many of the networking sites themselves are involved in the accumulation of this data about their users in order to target them with more effective advertisements or in more extreme cases they can sell your information to other companies looking to solicit you for your money.

Users of social networking sites are not required to verify their identity and so no one is guaranteed to be who they say they are. In 2009, MySpace reported 90,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on their site. Regulating these users is difficult because they can freely open multiple accounts under multiple false identities. Teens who happen to grow up in the growing social media culture are unaware of these threats and often times over share their personal information or pictures, which can make them vulnerable to sexual predators.

Don’t underestimate the security risks involved in social media engagement. Be aware of what you are posting and look to protect yourself at all times.

The generation growing up immersed in social media is becoming more and more anti-social. Many people are beginning to prefer an instant message chat to a phone conversation or a conversation consisting of youtube uploads opposed to having a true give and take conversation. Procon.org points out that the number of hours spent per day of face-to-face socializing has declined as the use of social media has increased. “Parents spend less time with their children and couples spend less time together even when they live in the same house because they are using the Internet instead of interacting with each other”. Personality and brain disorders in children are being attributed to social media when children are found to have difficulty in having real conversations, limited attention spans, and a need for instant gratification. Some cases are as severe as contributing to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and self-centered personalities.

According to…me, the most detrimental aspect of social media is that it encourages people to spend more of their time online opposed to interacting with people face-to-face. Procon.org states that teens spend an “average of nine hours per week on social networking sites”.

Doing what? It would be interesting to see what percentage of that time was spent on productive activities.

Everything can be a positive experience in moderation, but we have to remember the keyword there:

The children of the next generation need to learn how to interact with people in person and we need to remember that shutting off social media is necessary sometimes to get productive. If you find yourself watching double rainbows and badger badger videos all day, then take our advice and go outside! Maybe you will catch a glimpse of a real double rainbow!