I remember when Facebook first hit the scene when I was a
student at Cornell University, which is located in Ithaca, NY. I was
participating in the Prefreshman Summer Program and felt like a fish out of
water in a sense. When Facebook was first made available to all college
students in the Ivy League, I was hesitant to jump on the bandwagon with
everyone else, because that just wasn’t my style. I was already a member of MySpace
and hi5 to stay connected with my high school friends, but I was not one to
jump on the next big trend or fad because everyone else was doing it. However,
after realizing the potential for Facebook to open the door for me to meet and
connect with new people at Cornell, I quickly signed up for an account. That
was back on August 24, 2004. (This date is at the very end of my Facebook profile, which I think is pretty neat.)
A little over nine years later, I have seen how Facebook
quickly evolved from an exclusive social media platform for college students
into a platform for social networking laced with foolishness and drama. What
started out as a great way for students to connect and create lasting friendships
has culminated in an amalgam of social networking, cyberbullying, ad spamming,
game requests, and the like. The exclusivity was banished when the creators of
Facebook allowed any adult unaffiliated with a college who was of age to create
an account. Their biggest mistake was when they allowed high school then
teenagers thirteen and up to create accounts.
When Facebook allowed children to sign up, it seemed like
all heck broke loose. Granted, there were cases where adults partook in their
fair share of drama, but the inclusion of children into the social networking
site took the issues already on Facebook to another level. Cases suicide and
attempted suicide skyrocketed as cyberbullying, a new form of bullying, took
shape over social media sites (see “Cyber Bullying Statistics,” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html.)
What happened to the cool social networking site for college students to meet and
make connections? I attributed these changes to money, but the problems stemmed
from more than greed.
Danah Boyd wrote in her article, “Can Social Network Sites
Enable Political Action?,” published in the May 2008 issue of International Journal of Media &
Cultural Politics, that we as a society are “status-obsessed and narcissistic,”
and that “egoists love social network sites because of their desire to exhibit
themselves for the purposes of mass validation” (p. 113). Social media sites
such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have provided us with the perfect
platforms to cater to our desires to be seen by the world. What does this say
about the value we place on social media, and what does it say about our society
as a whole? Social media has so much to offer us, but are we willing to tap
into its bountiful resources?
I use Facebook for personal use every day, and even through
personal use of the site, I see the potential for it and other social media
platforms to be great assets to strategic communicators, to various media
entities, to non-profit agencies, and to emerging and established businesses.
However, this potential is blocked out by content that interests people more,
such as viral videos, memes, and game requests. I will admit that I am guilty
of indulging in these features of Facebook, as you can find several shared
memes and pictures on my profile. In spite of this, every day that I log on, I
wonder to myself, Where are the important
and serious posts and information? Where are the serious news article links?
Boyd spoke on this question in her article, stating, “Embarrassing videos and
body fluid jokes fare much better than serious critiques of power. Gossip about
Hollywood celebrities is alluring; the war in Iraq is depressing” (Boyd, 2008,
p. 115). After I read these statements and thought about it, I realized that at
the end of the day, people just want a place where they can escape from their
daily lives and decompress. They use social media to unload the stress from such
areas as unfulfilling jobs and troubled home lives.
This is not to say that Facebook does not feature important
information relevant to our society’s issues. In the past couple of years,
several social issues surrounding the LGBTQ community, illegal immigration, gun
control laws, and women’s rights found a platform on the site. People voiced
their interest and support or opposition of these issues through status updates
and “Likes,” both of which appeared on their friends and networks’ timelines. Despite
the crude jokes about and the heated and oftentimes callous and degrading
comments in debates on these issues, Facebook provided an outlet for people to make
their voices heard. These “voices” produced the user-generated content advocates
and dissenters needed to present to government agencies able to change laws
concerning these issues. It also showed users that they were not alone in their
way of thinking across the social media sites.
In their article, “Dynamic Debates: An Analysis of Group
Polarization Over Time on Twitter,” published in October 2010, Sarita Yardi and
Danah Boyd assert that this form of unification over a common cause resulted
from “corroboration-extremity effect” (Yardi & Boyd, 2010, p. 21). This
concept states that “even if one were to learn that another had the same
reasons for having an opinion, their confidence can still be heightened” (p.
21). We have seen this effect clearly on Facebook on a daily basis over the
years, as users’ banded together on common issues. The question I ask is this:
can we use this same effect to promote positive, uplifting content, and can we
use it to bolster new and established businesses and agencies that are looking
to tap into the benefits of social media? The answer is yes.
Non-profit organizations like Alabama MENTOR and new and
established businesses like Alabama News Network are finally realizing that it
is to their benefit to invest in some form of social media, and they need
competently trained employees well versed in the ins and outs of social media.
How will they get their feet in the door to social media? The answer is well-educated
strategic communicators who possess the necessary tools to harness the power
lying within social media. Universities must offer courses that train students
to use social media platforms professionally. These agency and business directors
and owners will then be able to branch out into the social media world to
promote their businesses, because they will have competent employees who are
able to handle the issues that using social media raises.
Todd Wasserman quotes Caitlin Francke in his article, “Steal
These 3 Social Marketing Tricks from Top Brands,” published on February 22,
2013, in which she gives new and established businesses advice for success on
social media platforms. She suggests that of all the strategies businesses can
take to gain relevance and a following on social media platforms, the key
strategy is “for a brand to stay true to their DNA, identity what they are best
at, what they can offer the consumers the most of, and focus on that”
(Wasserman, 2013, “Steal These 3”). If these agencies and businesses can do
this, then they are guaranteed to attract the consumers they want. The real
test is to see if we will pay any attention to what these agencies and
businesses have to offer.
References
Boyd, Danah.
(2008, May). “Can social network sites enable political action?” International Journal of Media &
Cultural Politics, 4(2), 241-244.
doi: 10.1386/macp.4.2.241_3
Bullying
Statistics. (2009). “Cyber Bullying Statistics.” Retrieved from http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html
Wasserman, Todd.
(2013, February 22). “Steal these 3 social marketing tricks from top brands.” Mashable, Inc. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2013/02/22/social-media-marketing-strategy/
Yardi, Sarita and
Danah Boyd. (2010, October). “Dynamic Debates: An analysis of group
polarization over time on twitter.” Bulletin
of Science, Technology and Society,
30(5), 316-327. doi: 10.1177/0270467610380011
No comments:
Post a Comment