Should you be careful of what you are saying in social media?

Photo credit: Ninth Wave Designs

This post was sparked by a comment in my blog post from auto ac condenser when I discussed about what social media has taught me about politics.

When I was around 10 years old, I can still remember that the media is only owned by the big companies.  The advertisements are so few that we can even memorize the words.  Hence whoever advertise on newspapers and television, they tend to stand out from the rest of the world!  That’s how powerful the media can be…

Also, the journalists, who reported through television and newspapers, tend to have better credentials in terms of whatever they have reported.  Hence, whatever that they have reported, the exposure and belief in that particular piece of news is 100% better than an advertisement…  However, the idea of newspapers and television is still the same in both news and advertisements, because they are still pushing information to the people who didn’t really ask for them.

As I grow older, it seems like the whole world is simply becoming richer.  Advertisements are everywhere!  The whole media world has been flooded!  Since you will still get an exposure of “half a million” people when you advertise on the local newspapers, the companies don’t mind spending five figures just to do that.  The problem is that we are now becoming selective in what we want to see since there are too many advertisements…

The start of the social media

In today’s world, the media has become readily available for all of us.  That’s what we called social media… Everyone of us has our own space to talk freely in social media.  And whatever we have expressed in the social media, it will be known to the world instantly.

How to listen to the news from social media

The criteria to listen to the social media is that you have to be there when this particular piece of “news” is being published.  For example, when we tweet something online, this message is only exclusive to the people who are online at that particular time.  And if we want to see more, we can look into the history of the tweets created by that person.

That’s how powerful the social media has become.  That’s how everyone of us has effectively become a citizen journalist!  We report about the things that we are interested in.  This effectively brings us to the question whether we should be careful of what we are saying in social media…

Should you be careful of what you are saying in social media?

From the very basic point of view, yes we should be careful of what we should say in social media.  This is because of the fear of letting our bosses, clients, friends, relatives and even strangers know about it.  The consequence can be very bad if this is not handled properly.

Actually, the whole idea is really about being yourself here.  But how can we achieve that in social media?

Just think about how businesses are now tackling social media… Not only do they have the same platform with the consumers to communicate their products, they still have to handle all the negatives that come to them too… The trick here is that for every problem, there is a solution to provide.  It’s the same as a salesperson who is there to solve all his customers’ problems so that he can make more sales.  This wasn’t a trick actually… In fact, the salesperson is just doing his job to solve his customers’ problems.  It’s the same as social media… That’s because social media is here to hear the voices of the customers’ grieves where the businesses are here to solve their problems.

If the businesses ever thought of hiding behind their brands and not to communicate with them since these people are “bad-mouthing” the brand in social media, it will only damage the business growth in the long term.  But if the businesses are there to solve the customers’ problems, it not only re-enforces the brand promise, it also helps in possible recurring sales since these people may be converted into unofficial brand ambassadors since their voices are often heard of.

I would like to see social media from the positive perspective.  As a personal brand of ourselves, we are supposed to keep improving ourselves.  If we insist to focus ourselves on improving ourselves in our lives, the kind of social media updates that we set (in facebook, twitter, blog, etc) can be of positive effects as well!  If you are being negative about someone, try writing in an “answer” format.  For example, try questioning yourself “How can I learn from hating this person”?  And answer it in the various status updates.

Since certain things are really not convenient to be known to certain people, I think it is still better for you to write it in your conventional diary book.  When you post something on social media, you are actually building a personal brand of yourself because you will be known to the world for who you are.  You are literally “advertising” yourself to the world… And please remember that the Internet always records down what you have said…

In short, please be positive (instead of careful) of what you are saying in social media…