Do You Need to be on Social Media?

Blogging

Every single time that I go on Facebook I see something new about the benefits of social media. Any time I’m online reading about social media, I read that every business and young professional needs to setup some sort of a random profile on a social media site. Does this sound common?

Do you need to be on social media?

With all of the talk of the importance of social media these days I wanted to dig a little deeper. I’m going to present the benefits and negatives of being on social media and then I’m going to provide you with my final answer.

What are the benefits of being on social media?

  • Networking. Most people in your field are on social media. By joining the party you can network with these people.
  • Job opportunities. My friend found a dream job on Facebook just because someone had a posting in their company, reached out to him, and liked what he had to offer.
  • Connect with old friends. I’m always adding and finding old friends on Facebook. It’s a great way to see what buddies from high school are up to.
  • Stay in touch. You can also stay in touch with current friends and cool people that you meet on trips by logging onto Facebook.
  • Aim at your target market. If you run a business, you can target your audience online. There’s a diverse bunch of potential customers on Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media that might be interested in what you have to offer.

Those are just the main reasons that I could think of right now. I’m sure that I missed out on a few.

What are the setbacks of social media?

  1. Poor judgment. I don’t always have the best judgment. It’s easy to get carried away in your 20s. You have a few drinks, you go on a drunken rant on social media, and you’re automatically labeled as someone with abuse problems. Do you want that?
  2. Lose your job. To tie in with the previous point, you can lose your job because of something that you do online. All employers will go online to see what their employees have done and are doing. One of my professors told me that a student lost a job because they posted pictures on Facebook in a revealing outfit when they were looking for a job in child care.
  3. Waste of time. The obvious issue with social media is that it has the huge potential to be a colossal waste of time. You go on Facebook, you start chatting and posting useless stuff, and a few hours have passed you by. This is the biggest waste of time.

We all know someone that made one (or all) of these mistakes with social media. This leads to the big question.

Do you have to be on social media?

Nope. You don’t have to be on social media if you’re not comfortable with it. If you don’t understand it, don’t care for it, and don’t want to waste your time on trivial activities, then don’t worry about social media. My advice to you if you want it is to keep on working on what you do best.

Are you on social media?

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