Overall, social media is very useful, both for the individual and for the company. On an individual level, social media facilitates communication and networking regardless of time and place. At both individual and corporate level, social media provides an easy way to network professionally. From a business perspective, social media provides an excellent way to market a company and increase the company’s awareness. But it requires an understanding of which social media channel to use in any given situation. It is also important for the customer experience that the customers of the company are known to tailor the social media content that suits them. I also feel that the good thing about social media is that information and news can be shared quickly to a wide target group.
Many customers nowadays make their purchasing decisions based on other recommendations, perhaps some blogger has praised a product in their own post. Someone else may have faulted a product in their own post. Giving feedback to the company has been made easy on social media channels and customers expect to receive a response to the feedback almost in real time. In my opinion, this increases the transparency of the company.
Disadvantages of social media include decreasing physical interaction between people because interaction via the internet has been made too easy. I also think it’s easier to bully people on social media because that’s where it can be done anonymously. Many people can also blur the boundaries between real life and social media, and social media can become too much of a distraction from real life. That is, a person becomes too addicted to social media: you browse Facebook sometimes, Instagram sometimes, etc. Young people take a lot of influence from social media, this can be detrimental to their self-esteem, because social media can give a false impression of, for example, appearance ideals.
Because social media is here to stay, it would be important for children from primary school onward to be taught the rules of social media and what is sensible use of social media. When using social media, it is important to consider information security risks.
