The good
world of social media has made a massive impact on so many, if not all of our
lives. Does anyone remember the days
before 2004, which was the year Facebook was launched by some guy called Mark
Zuckerberg – have you heard of him…thought you might have.
Just over a
decade ago, what was the best way to stay in touch with your loved ones, your
close friends or even your work colleagues?
It would be through phoning them to arrange a time to see them, or a
simple text message. E-mail was also
around, although not as easily accessible than it is nowadays.
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| The amount of social media choices we have today is endless |
Now, whatever
we do – social media seems to follow us.
Sending a tweet in 140 characters, plastering your wall with photos from
a wild night out on Facebook, watching crazy or classic videos on YouTube, or
keeping a professional database on LinkedIn.
These are some of the main tools we use, and let’s not forget the impact
of other sites or applications such as WhatsApp, Skype, Google Talk, Google+,
MySpace, or BBM. Yep, carry on listing
these and I’ll sound like a broken old record.
There is a
time and a place for social media, but just what are the dangers when it goes
wrong?
Twitter – Professional or personal
When Twitter
was launched in around 2007 or 2008, it was something I was absolutely not
interested in. In fact, I thought it was
just a site where fans could just stalk the movements of everyday celebrities,
from TV personalities and pop singers to Premier League football players.
I first got
Twitter at the start of my University degree in 2009, but still didn’t get into
it until well into my second year at the University of Northampton. Over 2,500 tweets later, it can get quite
addicting, but where do you need to find the right balance?
Some will use
Twitter for personal use and feelings.
That is all well and good for some, but don’t promote this as a
professional account on a professional website.
You have to be very careful with what you tweet nowadays. A lot of people have got into hot water with
using Twitter. Examples have stretched
from the superinjunctions row in 2011 when celebrities were using gagging
orders to stop the press getting their hands on a story that was quite
revealing, to Lewis Hamilton’s major blunder of tweeting McLaren confidential
race telemetry just hours before last season’s Belgian Grand Prix to his
millions of followers.
There is a
place and a time to use it. It can be seen as peace of mind, but be mindful when tweeting of what might be seen as funny, or
a joke, to when it becomes too personal or going as far as using words of a
racial/discrimination nature.
It is
difficult finding a right balance at times.
I attempt to keep a fully professional approach, and use Twitter to
promote my links for my websites, or retweet a friend who is doing well, as
well as having the occasional opinion on modern life, or the general news. For example, the Leveson press enquiry was a
big thing to follow, and easy to have your own view.
There are
times where Twitter can get funny. The
RIM server crash in October 2011 allowed BlackBerry to be ridiculed with
hilarious tweets such as ‘Dear Blackberry, HAHAHA! Sincerely Apple’ or the usual
jokes about John Terry’s affairs off-the-field using the hashtag #JohnTerryExcuses.
However, to be taken seriously in life – it
is important to keep a balance between the funny, the opinionated and the
totally offensive.
Up and coming journalists
especially like me must be extra careful, because nowadays, some prospective employers
tend to search your name when applying for a job and check your Twitter
activity.
If they think you tweet inappropriately with examples such as ‘That party last night was totally dope….or ‘my dog just licked my
friend’s face, was so funny LOL,’ then that employer will simply screw your
application up and throw it in the bin.
Facebook – Don’t let it get you down
It is quite
incredible to think that Facebook has been around for almost 10 years, and has
made a significant impact in the last six years. I joined in July 2007, and used to use it
excessively.
Nowadays, I will only use
it for an hour a week which was one of my New Year resolutions which is still
going strongly into June.
Facebook’s
impact on the world can’t be lost, and the background story is interesting,
especially if anyone saw the movie ‘The Social Network’ three years ago. It is probably the number one choice still
for many when it comes to social media, and it annihilated its opposition like
MySpace until Twitter came along to invade and take away some of its
popularity.
What doesn’t
help Facebook is the amount of times Zuckerberg and his team change the profile
layout. Since I’ve been on Twitter, I
can only recall one major change to the website layout; Facebook is almost in
double figures. It is still the place to
share video links, post photos and keep in contact with friends involving long
messages that can’t be summed up in 140 characters. However, don’t get too addicted to it.
I previously
will happily admit that I used Facebook for at least one hour a day a few years
ago, sometimes more than that. That’s
not as bad as people spending half their life on it, but it can turn into quite
an unhealthy obsession. Also, be aware
of what you might be posting. Don’t make
Facebook public in your privacy settings if you want to keep your personal business
away from those search engines.
There have
been a few times where I’ve been using Facebook, and it got me so down, I
needed to take a clean break. In late
October 2011, things were not going well for me on a number of levels. I wasn’t having a great stint in my part-time
job at the time, my early third year work at University was simply not good
enough, and I was being affected by some world events that were happening far too
much. Every time I went on the site, I
felt like I was either taking things too personally, or felt in a negative mood
afterwards. At the start of November 2011, I
banned myself from Facebook for 25 days to see if I could live without it. I managed it very comfortably and have rarely
slipped into old habits since.
Facebook can
be a great place to start a lengthy message conversation or keep in contact
with those you may not see any more from college, Uni or sixth form. It is great to arrange events, and share
those great or sometimes more embarrassing photos the morning after a hectic
night out on the dance floor, and it can be a good form for communication. I know for sure it helped having a page for
the UoN journalism group I graduated with, so if anything came out that was
updated, or some information was required, it was handy to answer queries, or
to express opinions or even calm situations down that looked like they might
get out of control.
Facebook is a
good tool to have in the modern world, but don’t take things too
personally. If you do, this social media
alley is not for you.
Deciding what to have
I think my social
media balance is very good, and I don’t think the use of it is out of
control. I have LinkedIn (professional),
Twitter (professional and opinions) and Facebook (personal).
However, the
individual in themselves need to strike the right balance with social
media.
For example in my case, I deleted
my MySpace in late 2009 when I realised I wasn’t using it anymore, and if I
ever decided to go down the Google+ route, Facebook would have to go.
Make
decisions and stick to them. The most
important ingredient about social media is enjoy using it in moderation, but
don’t take it personally, don’t let it take over the whole of your life and
know what is right and what is wrong when it comes to using these sites.
Here are just
a few pointers of knowing what is right and what is wrong when it comes to
using social media.
1. Only
criticise when you feel it is worth it, or you feel you can do a better
job. Repetitive criticism gets boring, and if you’ve only got something nasty to say, keep it to
yourself rather than tweet it to your number of followers, whether it’s 3, 33
or 3,333. For example: Piers Morgan’s
regular criticism of Arsenal is fun to start with, but can get pretty tedious
after a while.
2. When you have
photos you want to share, make sure that they are appropriate to use. It can just take one person to make a
suggestion or a comment and the whole thing could go viral. When deciding what to put online, think long
and hard about it before posting.
3. If you still
decide to use Facebook to poke people, seriously get a life. Why would you want to poke an individual? The e-mail message from Facebook: ‘You have
been poked,’ is the most pointless e-mail message you can receive – unless you
get constant spam from medicine companies!
4. Think before
your tweet or update a status. This isn’t
a problem if you’ve got good news to share such as passing a driving test, or
celebrating your graduation. We all like
good news. Even posting your heartbreak
at losing a close individual is okay if you are looking for messages of
symphony and thoughts. Do not post
anything that is going to be offensive in any way, or makes you sound angry
about the entire planet everytime you go online. Your followers count or friends count will
drop if you do this.
5. When in the
job market for a new job, take extra care when using social media. Companies will always want people who will
respect their values and standards.
Those who go too personal can kiss goodbye to their dream job. If you don’t want to be made searchable on
search engines etc…check your privacy settings, as there will probably be a way
to stop this coming up.
6. Those looking
for news stories, take it with a pinch of salt.
For example, Twitter is very good as a starting reference point, but don’t
forget that it will be the websites that report the full story, and that is a
better guideline. You never quite know
what is factual and what isn’t on Twitter unless it looks obvious from the name
of the account.
7. Be very
careful of what personal information you post online. Posting your date of birth is fine, but only
put contact details down such as address and phone numbers if you feel
comfortable with doing that. You never
know who might be looking at your profile.
8. Have fun
using it and feel like you can express yourself, but be aware of the risks when
it comes to using these sites.
Social media
has had an impact, and for many, a positive impact on our lives. However, there are dangers and consequences
for misuse of information, so have knowledge of what’s right and what’s wrong
before entering the social media pantheon.
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