Is Social Media Any Good?

Do you need to have accounts on all social media platforms? Is social media any good? Do we have the good and mostly a professional reason to have an account in every single social media website?

When Facebook just launched, I was still in the middle of my journey to be an experienced video producer and I really enjoyed time on Facebook with my friends and family. Everyone sent me interesting and funny videos that made my day more fun and enjoyable. I could be a part of the majority and stay up to date with ideas of people around me. Facebook also helped me a lot in my creativity.

And then Instagram came. Short videos, fun pictures and plenty of entertaining content. I was already on Twitter following the trends and finding out about all the important stuff as it happened.

But then a question came to my head after a few years. Am I wasting my time? Oh my god—I spent two hours watching YouTube videos in my work hour on a business day! What’s happening? I can’t get rid of my iPhone. I felt like I had to see every Instagram post that appeared in my feed and I wanted to see if I have more followers than Fritz (my colleague and one of my best friends).

I asked my friends and colleagues and realized most of them have the same challenge. In this article I don’t want to deny the use of the social media. I am one of the fans and users of social networks. How can we deny it? But I want to stay on the right track and want to say that you should take every step very carefully on the social media. You need to know that is social media any good? Is social media only another way of entertainment? Is social media a way to grow your business and find customers? Or is social media only a waste of time?

Let’s begin with Facebook. Facebook is a wonderful platform to stay in touch with friends and family. You can meet new friends and stay up to date with popular content. A Facebook page can be your online store. Many people are making money on their Facebook page and it’s a great marketing platform. I can text my new friends and colleagues, chat and call with customers and I don’t even need to share my phone number with them.

Instagram is the most powerful entertainment and maybe business app. People share their daily activities, their videos, music and songs. They advertise their products on their Instagram page, their business, the latest YouTube video and their latest music video etc… What a perfect app to relax, laugh and cry. Instagram, we love you. But what are we really doing on Instagram?

Twitter, it’s what’s happening. I don’t want to go through all the social media but still we need to talk about on of the most powerful social media networks, and Twitter is certainly one of them. Twitter is great. I don’t even need to launch Fox News or CNN all day to stay in touch with the latest news. Before they even know the news, I can see it on Twitter. I love tweeting and retweeting. Here’s where I don’t care about having more followers. I just want to be informed of the latest news. When I watch my favorites NBA games and San Antonio Spurs is winning, I will tweet as much as I can in the community to follow the games on TV and on my iPhone and enjoy it much more than 20 years ago when none of these existed.

This is such a great way to see what’s happening on the other side of the world. Some people say that during the Egypt revolution in January and February 2011, the dictator was defeated by the social media and especially by Twitter. That’s the power of social media. Sharing and publishing the hottest news.

Social media is great, but it can be dangerous. How many students fail every year because they spend valuable hours they can study on social media, forgetting exams? How much time do we waste on our iPhone just to be the first to retweet other tweets? How many times we forgot to have a good time with our family because we were watching the most viewed YouTube videos for a hundred times? What do we miss if we don’t spend so much time on social media? Have you ever tried it? Do you think you can to stay away from the social media for a week? Can we really not open our Instagram before we get to bed? I know people who deleted their Instagram and Facebook accounts a hundred times and reopened it again and again. I have friends who say I quit smoking, but I can’t quit tweeting.

But what’s the bright side in social media? The bright side is that if you are clever you can use social media for good and productive purposes, there’s much to be gained. Social media can be wonderful to advertise, great platform for marketing and making money. It’s a good way to stay in touch with family and friends when you are far away from home. You don’t even need your phone. Any internet connection can keep you connected to home. You can be informed of the good and bad news, traffics, terrorist attacks, stocks, prices etc.…

So, is social media good or bad? I can’t answer this for you. What I can do though, is to reveal the bright and the dark side of it. Every good thing in the world can be dangerous. You can’t stop walking because some people had an accident with a car while they were walking through the street. But you can be wary of the dangers of walking in the streets.

Is social media any good? This is the question that you should answer yourself.