Social Networking

Social networking has revolutionized our world in the last two decades and had made us more connected than ever before. What started out a way to stay connected with friends and family has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. Although it has many positives for individuals and businesses, it also comes with problems and concerns but is continuously evolving to address these issues.

One obvious way social networking can be utilized is for businesses to promote their products and services. Small businesses in particular who are not in the position to spend thousands of dollars on their marketing campaigns greatly benefit from websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Some of these platforms have managed to integrated different marketing and selling features into one website. For example, instead of going to Yelp to read reviews on restaurants and then going to another website for their special, you can access it all on Facebook's user friendly business pages. Going back to the idea of reviews, you can also use the feature to track customer service and satisfaction. Rather than setting up a toll free number or a hotline to intake customer feedback, customers can share either positive or negative feedback online. Its overall a great tool to create and raise brand awareness for little to no cost. Targeted ads can also be purchased to increase traffic to your website and lead to higher customer conversion rates.

The major benefit of social networking is obviously the power to stay connected with friends and family from anywhere in the world. Many people are regaining lost connections all the way back to their early childhood. It's also being used in emergency situations and to break breaking news to a wide range of audience. It's even being heavily used in the current election to engage young voters to go out there and vote. Another major contribution to society is the fact that websites like Twitter and YouTube have been credited with helping topple oppressive regimes in parts of the world when people shared videos and pictures of their uprising.

Like the old saying goes, "everything good comes with a price" and social networking and social media in general has some negative aspects or "dark side" that needs to be addressed. One major concern is of-course privacy. When something is uploaded to the internet, it's usually close to impossible to erase it. You can try deleting the content all you want but once its out there its out there forever. Bringing it back to our class and relating it to the corporate environment, one negative aspect is that many firms and employers now include looking up your social networking sites as part of the background check. This is why every time you upload something about your personal life, you need to think twice about who might be able to see it. I have read many stories on people being denied job offers because of controversial statements or photos they posted on Facebook that was eventually seen by the hiring manager. There are now even paid services that try to "hide" your illicit uploads on to the last pages of major search engines because even experts know it cannot be permanently deleted. Another major concern, especially among the younger generation is the fact that increased amount of time spent on social networking websites can cause social anxiety and lack of social skills as stated by Hillary Stout in her piece, Antisocial Networking? In addition, cyberbullying has also increased in the last decade to the point even government officials are stepping in and setting up programs in schools and universities to combat the issue. Websites such as JuicyCampus that is mentioned in Jeffery Young's article titled They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites shares rumors and gossip about fellow classmates that can have a detrimental impact on their self esteem and confidence.

However with new challenges come new opportunities to combat these obstacles and even profit from them. The field of cybersecurity has gained a lot of momentum with the concern of privacy and better technologies are being created to make the internet safer both for the individual user and government entities. With increased funds to technology programs in schools and campuses, the next generation can work together to make the internet a safer place.