Current Practice Analysis For Social Media: Features, Advantages And Disadvantages

Features of Social Media

Discuss about the Creative strategies in social media marketing.

Social media is the proper collection of several channels of online communication that are solely dedicated for the inputs are based on community, significant collaboration, sharing of contents and better interactions. The websites as well as the applications, which are dedicated to social networking, forums, social networking, micro blogging and various others within the social media types. Social media has become the most important and integral part of the users since the social media websites as well as the applications is proliferated (Hampton et al. 2014). The most traditional means of social media mainly involves several social components like comment fields for the users. Within any specific business or organization, this social media is utilized for marketing the products, promoting the brands, fostering new businesses and even connecting to their current customers. The social media analytics is the proper practice of collecting and keeping data from all the websites of social media or blogs and thus analysing those data for taking or making various business decisions. The most basic utilization of the social media analytics is for mining the customer sentiment for the purpose of supporting marketing and various customer services activities.

Social media has brought excess change in the overall point of views of interactions with peers, friends, customers and various other people. Apart from the personal usability, social media is also used in the businesses for marketing products. The company can easily validate the brand with the help of this social media. There are various social media networking sites present in today’s world. The most significant and popular social networking sites that are in current practice mainly include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pintrest, Snapchat and Foursquare. The access to any type of news and connection with the rest of the world has become extremely simpler with the help of this social media. Moreover, the social media is responsible for bringing out more success in business by means of marketing any product for the company. The following literature review will be focusing on the various important features of social and its current practices.

The significant collection of various methods, skills, processes and techniques that are utilized for proper production of services as well as goods in the perfect accomplishment of goals and objectives is known as technology. Technology has acquired the entire world by enhancing several advantages or benefits for its users. The newest form of this technology is the growth as well as development as well as utilization of the basic tools. The embedment of the machines for allowing the operations without any detailed knowledge of the workings (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013). One of the most significant advancement of this technology is social media. Social media is the tool or application for sharing information amongst various people. This type of social media mainly involves various networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter; even bookmarking websites such as Reddit. There are various advantages of this social media and thus the problems with this technology are also faced by the users.

Advantages of Social Media

Social media is the most utilized platform for interaction through the connection of Internet. According to Van Dijck (2013), social is the catch all term for the variety of various application of Internet, which subsequently enables the users for creating content and also interacting with one another. This specific type of interaction could be taken in various forms. However, some of the most common types of social media interaction mainly involve sharing of various links to any interesting and important content that is produced by the third parties, sharing media like photos, posts and videos, posting own point of views, commenting on the various posts, updates, photos, links and videos that are shared by other users and public updates to any particular profile like involving information or data on the recent actions or activities and also location of the data (Van Dijck and Poell 2013).

Figure 1: Mindmap of Current Practice Analysis for Social Media

(Source: Created by the Author)

As per Fuchs (2017), social media is considered as one of the most important as well as significant requirements in today’s world. It is the group of several websites in which all the users eventually network for social means. Social media comprise of various features with it. The most significant features of this social media are as follows:

1. i) Web Space: The first and the foremost feature of the social media is web space. The website of the social media must provide their users completely free of cost web space for the purpose of uploading any content.
2. ii) Web Address: The second significant feature or aspect of the social media is web address. Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie (2014) state that the users of the social media are provided with a unique web address, which becomes their unique web identity. The users thus can share as well as post all the contents on the specific web address.

Building Profiles: The next important aspect or characteristic of this social media is the creation of several profiles. The users of the social media are eventually asked for entering all of their personal details such as names, addresses, schools, colleges, date of birth, various educational qualification and professional details and many more. Van Dijck and Poell (2013) have stated that the particular web site then is responsible for mining all the personal data or information with the purpose to connect with other individuals (Refer to Appendix One).

1. iv) Connection with Peers: The fourth significant characteristic of the social media is the connection with peers or friends. The users are encouraged for posting all types of professional and personal updates regarding themselves (Nah and Saxton 2013). The web site of social media, hence becoming an important platform for the connection of friends and relatives.
2. v) Uploading Content in Real Time: The users are given proper tools and techniques for posting proper contents within real time. The content could either be text, audio, video, images or any symbolic likes or dislikes. Due to the involvement of real time, the social media is extremely popular for its users.
3. vi) Enabling Conversations: The conversations of the users are easily enabled with the help of social media. According to Luo, Zhang and Duan (2013), they are given the rights in commenting on various posts and thus, a great social connect is enhanced.

Posts having Time Stamp: The next significant feature of the social media is the that the posts on the social media have time stamp. Since, all the posts are eventually stamped with time, the entire procedure of following any post is extremely easy than others (Refer to Appendix One).

Hampton et al. 2014 state that when all the communications channels are dedicated to the community based inputs, interactions and sharing of contents together, they are collectively known as social media. The simple procedure of sharing of contents is collectively known as the social media. There are various advantages or benefits of this social media. These advantages are given below:

1. i) High Connectivity: The first and the foremost advantage of the social media is extremely high connectivity. The entire connectivity in the entire world is extremely advanced and thus the users can easily connect with all other people. As per Marwick and Boyd (2014), there is no such restriction that the social media could be accessed from any specific part. The thoughts could be easily shared with the help of social media.
2. ii) Providing Education: The second significant advantage of this social media is to provide proper education for the users. This is useful since the teachers and the students are getting benefitted from this and hence the experts and professionals could easily access the information or data through the social media.

Disadvantages of Social Media

Information as well as Updates: The third significant benefit of the social media is the information as well as updates. According to Ashley and Tuten (2015), the users can easily update about themselves from the latest occurring and happenings in the surrounding. Television and the print media in modern days are absolutely biased and thus do not convey any true message. With the utilization of social media, the facts could be easily obtained and so is the true information after doing relevant research.

1. iv) Inducing Promotion: The next significant advantage of the social media is that it helps in promoting any business, product or service. Duggan and Brenner (2013) state that since, the entire world is open to the user; they can easily promote their business or products. This helps in making the businesses extremely profitable and also less expensive as all of the expenses that are made over any specific business are for the purposes of advertisement or promotion. This could be easily reduced by constantly as well as regularly getting involved on a social media platform for the successful connection with the target audiences.
2. v) Noble Cause: As per Gerbaudo (2018), the next important benefit of the social media mainly involves the requirement of noble cause. This particular type of platform is also utilized for the purpose of noble cause. For an example, the entre concept of promotion for the social welfare activities or donations for the needy people is an extremely significant noble cause and this is easily done with the help of social media. Since, all the people are connected on the Internet; these types of causes could be easily promoted.
3. vi) Providing Awareness: The next important benefit of the social media is awareness. Gikas and Grant (2013), state that this type of platform is utilized also for the awareness or innovative method the users are living in. It is the basic social media platform that is being responsible for helping the users in discovering all the new as well as innovative stuffs, which could easily enhance the personal lives of the people (Tess 2013). Each and every individual of the society is benefitted from the platforms of social media and hence, it is an important factor of awareness.

Improving Business Reputation: The next significant benefit of the social media is the improvement of the business requirements. Moreover, the business sales are also improved with the help of this type of platform. The positive comments regarding any company helps the business to grow and develop the goodwill and sales. According to Ruths and Pfeffer (2014), all the people are free in sharing in sharing their views over the social media and thus impacting positivity, when the good words are being shared.

Helping Government as well as Security Agencies for Fighting Crime: The next important advantage of the social media is that they help the government as well as all the agencies in fighting crime or such issues. One of the most significant advantages of this social media is that it helps Governments and Security Agencies to spy and catch criminals to fight crime (De Choudhury et al. 2013). Due to the presence of this particular advantage, social media becomes explicitly important and vital for all the users.

1. ix) Helping Building Communities: Another significant advantage of the social media majorly involves helping in building any community. Social media is responsible in the proper building as well as participation of the community irrespective of the religion and hence discussing or learning about their point of views.
2. x) Helping for Issues: the final significant advantage of the social media mainly involves helping all the users for their issues or problems (Seidman, 2013). The issues or the problems could be easily shared with the community for getting help as well as proper guidelines. Since, the entire world is connected; the help could either be in terms of money or advice.

All the above mentioned advantages or benefits make the entire concept of social media extremely important for their users.

As per Gensler et al. (2013), in spite of having all these extremely important advantages or benefits, there are some of the most significant disadvantages that make this platform of social media vulnerable for their users. The various significant disadvantages or challenges for utilizing the social media are as follows:

1. i) Cyber Bullying: One of the most dangerous disadvantage or challenge of utilizing this social media is cyber bullying. As per the statistics, about 30% of the total children worldwide have been the major victims of cyber bullying in their lives. According to Madden et al. (2013), as anybody could easily create a fake account within social media with the sole purpose of bullying any specific person, they have the access to do anything without getting being traced. It is extremely difficult to catch someone, who is bullying a person. There are various threats, challenges and rumours that could be easily sent over the network to the masses with the purpose of creating chaos as well as discomfort within the society. All these threats and intimidation messages within the social media are used for creating any type of discomfort within the society and especially for the youth generation.
2. ii) Hacking: The second disadvantage of the utilization of social media is hacking. The personal data as well as privacy is easily hacked as well as shared over the Internet (Trainor et al. 2014). This type of activity is responsible for making financial losses for the society and also loss of the confidential data and personal life. Eventually, the identity theft is again one of the most important problems, which gives or provides major losses to any user by simply hacking all the personal accounts. Various personal accounts on the social media had been hacked in the past with the sole purpose of posting such materials, which have affected the personal lives of the individuals. This is one of the dangerous disadvantages of the social media and every user is advised to keep their personal data and accounts safe to avoid such accidents (Seidman, 2013). Hacking is considered as the most dangerous disadvantages of hacking.

Addiction: The third important disadvantage of the social media is addiction. The addictive part of the social media is extremely effective for the users and thus could disturb the personal lives of the users as well. All the teenagers are solely affected by this factor and thus when they get involved with the addiction of social media; they are eventually completely cut off from the society (Duggan and Brenner 2013). This type of addiction also wastes the time of the individuals for being utilized by any productive activity or task.

1. iv) Frauds or Scams: Another significant disadvantage of the social media is the involvement of various frauds or scams. There are various examples of these scams and frauds, in which the users have significantly scammed and also committed fraud with the help of social media. As per Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie (2014), the frauds and scams have become excessively higher with this type of platform.
2. v) Security and Privacy Issues or Problems: This is another important disadvantage of the social media is the security and privacy issues or problems within the platform. In today’s technological world, there are various security agencies that are having access to the personal accounts of the people. This could be extremely vulnerable for the privacy of the users as they do not have any security of the data (Nah and Saxton 2013). Since, it is open to the world, these types of security and privacy issues could rule the world and the data of the users would be at stake. The confidential information often becomes explicitly difficult to be secured for the users and they suffer through various dangerous situations.
3. vi) Reputation: The next significant disadvantage of the social media is loss of reputation. This social media could easily ruin the reputation of a user only by the creation of a falsified story and thus spreading within the social media. According to Luo, Zhang and Duan (2013), all the businesses could also suffer major losses for the bad reputation that is being conveyed on the social media. This type of loss of reputation could even cause the loss of lives.

Social Media and the 2016 US Presidential Election

Issues of Health: Another important disadvantage of the social media is the issue of health. The excessive usability of this social media could even have any negative impact on the health. Eye sights, obesity and affect to the brain are the major problems for the heath issues of the users.

Social media is one of the most important and significant platforms to show or express the point of views of the users. They can share their point of views with the world or whoever is connected with them. The various significant points of the literature review mentioned above mainly comprise of the features, advantages and disadvantages of this particular platform. These features, advantages and demerits of social media clearly mention about the current position of social media in today’s media. Since, it is the most important and significant or integral part of the world. These various disadvantages have become major problems for the society.

The use of social media and the current practice of social media are quite different in present world. As per CIO.com (2018), social media had a big break within the year of 2016. The entire medium and small social media organizations have reached a new height for influencing and not without consequences. In the Presidential election campaign of the United States, the public had grappled all the ways of social media for taking the elections. Although, CIO.com has uncovered the darker sides of the digital introverts, there are various slanted views or even political biases. In the final weeks of presidential election 2016, it has become absolutely clear that the social media could be extremely dangerous or powerful for the society (CIO.com 2018).

The elected President of Donald Trump has utilized his Twitter account for the personal megaphone and has twittered his views in the most haphazard manner. The tweets that the President now gives, is guided with media coverage  and, in many ways, has driven more attention than any other press conference, debate or rally.

According to CIO.com (2018), Samsung is in the middle of a strong battle with the organization of Apple for the supremacy of smart phone. One of these methods is when the South Korean organization looks at the edge from the consumers of their social media activities. This company utilizes an important analytics platform for gaining instant insights and also the detailed reports about the conversations.

Facebook is recently facing major problems after the scandal of Cambridge Analytica scandal (CIO.com 2018). Most of the users have deleted their profiles from this popular social media web site, which also includes the likes of Elon Musk. Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra Group has thus recommended the Indians in bringing out their social media site suggestions and ideas and he is willing to help them with the main capital.

The comparison between the literature of social media and its current practice is given below:

Social media is eventually perceived as the development of Web 2.0 for mentioning the fact that this is founded on the core concept of the user driven and interactive Web. Various blogs, chat rooms and message boards provide the proper experience, which is described as the social media; however, this particular term is more strongly and easily recognized with websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg and many more.

However, in current practices, these platforms are utilized for political benefits or organizational marketing. The President even utilizes this media to bring out his point of views and thus they should be properly protected. Huge organizations like Samsung and Apple are utilizing social media platforms for understanding their needs and competitions. Various competitive advantages are easily obtained with the help of this social media platform.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above literature review, conclusion can be drawn that social media is the computer based technology that is used for sharing any type of data or information and ideas with the rest of the world with the help of various virtual networks and communities. Some of the most features or characteristics of this social media mainly include presence of interactive Web 2.0 applications, user generated contents like comments, text messages, posts, digital videos, digital photos or data via every online interaction, creation of various profiles that are completely service specific, development of several online social networks with the help of connection of the user’s profiles with all the groups and individuals. All the users of the services of social media through the technologies that are web based like laptops, computers and desktops or even smart phones. When all these services are engaged, the users could easily create the extremely high interactive platforms with which the various communities, organizations and individuals could easily share, discuss, modify as well as create the user generated or any previously generated contents. These contents are eventually posted online and thus the pervasive and substantial changes are made for the sole purpose of communicating within the communities, individuals, organizations and businesses. The alterations amongst the social media mainly refer to the vast communication strategies that the organizations and individuals are utilizing. The current practice in social media is completely different from the traditional sectors. The social media has become more advanced and technology driven in the current days and thus the users are more benefitted from this. The marketing of any product or service is also done with the help of social media and thus it is an important requirement in any business or company. Since, it is connected with the world, advertising becomes very easy. The above mentioned literature review has clearly outlined all the key features of social media with relevant details. Moreover, the proper comparison between the traditional concepts of social media with all of its current practices has been provided here.

References

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