From Social Media to Business Media
Social media has entered an age of numbers. Now more than ever, especially with tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite, consumers are more concerned with their quantitative gains over the actual people engaging with them. Social media is less social and more business, and not just for companies. Individuals are also becoming obsessed with having a ‘large’ following. Everyone wants to be a social media mogul, and some are even willing to pay for followers. Its not just big numbers either, there’s also the idea of a good follower ‘ratio’. Basically, your number of followers should be more than or at least equal to the number of people you are following. It is crazy to think that when Facebook was first becoming popular, social media was about connecting you with family and friends. Now, social media is more about networking, status, and business.
When you apply for a job, it is more than likely that your employer will look you up on social media as sort of an pre-interview to determine if they should even offer you one in the first place. In this way, social media becomes vital to people who do not even care about its rising dominance. The ease of finding someone by simply doing a Google Search of their name inadvertently causes people to want to make sure their profiles are up to date and look presentable, and, for some job opportunities, perhaps even make sure they have a decent following.
Social media also has many psychological and self-esteem problems associated with it, especially in teenagers and young adults. The so called ‘fear of missing out’, or FOMO, is one example where people see their friends having fun on social media and feel like they have somehow missed out. With the rise of Instagram stories and Snapchat, being able to broadcast your life live has been immensely popular and influential in the way that we let our followers know what we are doing. It is possible, however, that this does more damage than good. It is so much easier for kids today to feel left out because they can actually SEE what they are missing out on. This indirectly causes a form of unintentional online bullying, more often than not making people feel worse about themselves because they are not the ones in that Instagram story. On the flip side, many people are less concerned with what they are watching and more concerned with who is engaging with their content, and the number of people who are. There are apps that tell you when someone unfollows you so that you can unfollow them back, keeping that ‘ratio’ in check. There are tutorials and videos that discuss how to best optimize your posts and when to post. There are even certain layouts that you can post your Instagram photos in to make it more aesthetically appealing. All of these things are just a few examples of how technical and incorporated social media has become.
The value of social media used to be about connecting with friends and sharing experiences. Today, it is much more complicated as we must navigate the dos and don’ts of a shared online world. A social media presence is vital not just for the social aspect, but for career opportunities as well. Although, it is important to beware the consequences of investing yourself in a society where you can only see what people want you to see.
