Week 1B: Social Media Use Today

Social Media in General

          I see social media usage falling into three main categories: personal, business, and political.  Most people who use social media at least use it for personal reasons like keeping up with friends and family and staying connected to the world in general and possibly their neighborhood specifically.  Folks can belong to groups and pages that reflect their interests and hobbies.

          Almost every business on the planet has some social media presence, whether it be a Facebook page or group or just occasional random tweets.  Some have full web sites yet still participate in social media.  It is a good way to promote a brand, a product line, or individual products.  It can also be used to show what extracurricular activities a company is associated with like a local charity or nationwide cause. 

          One subset of personal and business use of social media is politics.  Politics is everywhere these days and everyone thinks they know how to run the world.  With the COVID-19 lockdowns, this usage expanded greatly.  It also appears that the number of trolls and cyberbullies increased exponentially.  It has become hard to express a political opinion without someone jumping down your throat.  I would say this is one of the most negative aspects of a medium made for communicating, that some people are out there to shut you down if you don’t agree with them.  It is really too bad because it has silenced many people with good opinions and ideas because they don’t care to suffer attacks, usually from ignorant people who don’t know what they are talking about.  But you can’t fix stupid. 

Social Media Platforms Geared Towards?

Social media platforms can be geared toward personal use, for business, or towards both.  Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, music streaming sites, gamer-oriented communities, and dating sites were all originally targeted at personal use.  But clever marketing types are always looking for new avenues of expression and promotion so many of these platforms have been bifurcated to handle both the personal and business.  Facebook and Instagram in particular are used by many businesses.  And there is advertising by businesses on all the personal sites.

LinkedIn and the multitude of job sites like Indeed, Glassdoor, etc. are used by those expanding their careers, looking for work or connections, and wanting to know the hiring trends of the next few years.  There are business-to-business (B2B) sites that do not have personal uses.  Messaging sites are used for both business and personal.  Even SMS texting on your phone which was once used solely to communicate among friends and family has now been coopted by businesses trying to shove things down your throat.

How I Use Social Media Now

I'm a Lead on Nextdoor, a Group Admin of a political Facebook group, and a negligent editor of two Facebook pages.  I have a Twitter account that I rarely read but I have Facebook set up to send every post I make to Twitter. I have an Instagram account to keep up with my nieces and nephews and a Pinterest account to collect art and interior design pieces I find.  

I use LinkedIn for career-related things and I used to check in on Foursquare all the time.  I’m in a bunch of Meetup groups. Sometimes I look at YouTube videos, but mostly for school.  I stream music on Amazon Music, Pandora, XM/Sirius, YouTube Music, and Spotify . . . aren't student rates great! 

I'm on Steam, Twitch, Slack, Discord, reddit, Behance, and some that I do not recall at the moment but I don't use them much.  You can see that if I fully participated on all those platforms, I would have time for nothing else! 

Blogs I Commented On

         I’m in Group 3, the green group.  I made comments on the first blog posts of all the members of my group except one where I couldn't figure out how.  I’m trying to make up for being late by being thorough 😊

Group 3

• Jessica Brown

• Yoshinori Enomoto

• Sophia Hecker
• Sarah Marcotte (who wrote the best blog I have ever read)
• Kate Strong
• Ivan Vincent (couldn't figure out how to comment, so I will do it here)

My first thought on encountering your blog was that you have a murder mystery theme going and there’s a body at the bottom of that black lake.  Your photography is stunning.  Normally B/W doesn’t do much for me but I really like your work (the link doesn’t work but cutting and pasting it did).