Noah Rozelle

Julia Intawiwat

ENGL 2116-013

27 November 2017

Social Media and You

Social Media is a growing platform that many use to stay in touch with friends,

coworkers, and family. However, we all know that. What many do not know is the vast range of
sites and programs that encompass Social Media. From applets found on the phone to

programs that are preinstalled onto new computers, Social Media is a way of modern living and

communication. Of the hundreds of Social Media platforms in the world, I am going to look in-

depth into the application of Social Media in business and whether they prove useful or harmful.

The platforms that I will assessing are Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, all of

which are very prominent in Western society.

Skype is a voice and video chat platform that was founded in 2003 and headquartered in

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and Palo Alto, California, United States. The growth of Skype

throughout the years has been exponential, to the point where almost everyone has an account

and uses frequently to communicate with people in a quick and reliable fashion. Businesses

have started using Skype to host video conferences and reach people from all ends of the world

to conduct business. Known for the reliability of a paid service, it is free and easily accessible

anywhere with an internet connection. Although, due to the lack of subscription or purchase

price, the company chooses not to guarantee server uptime as a form of liability control.

Individuals in search for a job frequently use Skype in order to conduct interviews from across

the world or as a way of seeing face-to-face with a potential employer without having to pay for

the interviewee to come to the location. The harm of Skype to a business is in the lack of

guarantee that service will be available at all times. This can cause scheduled events to fall

through due to technical difficulties that is not in the power of the company and can lead to

miscommunication. Overall, Skype is seen as a grand asset to companies which allows

telecommunication to be better than ever.

Facebook is a social platform that was created in 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by

Mark Zuckerberg. Originally a platform for college students and faculty to be connected across

campuses and schools, it has grown into a worldwide phenomenon and near necessity for

anyone in a corporate position of a company. Facebook boasts a whopping 2.07 billion monthly

active users per month (2017, Noyes). Because of this, the benefit of Facebook to a business
would be the use of advertising on the site. Due to the algorithms used by Facebook and the

advancement of machine learning technologies, advertisements are specially catered towards

those that would be enticed to follow up with a potential purchase. The harm of Facebook to a

business would be that the potential of defamation of your image should a bad practice or

misstep be brought to light on Facebook. Countless times videos are taken and shared on

Facebook of a company or business, usually food services, breaking rules and standards at a

systematic fashion. This leads to boycotts and exposure which could potentially lead to fines

from government agencies or worse.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented platform that has boomed in the last few years and is a

necessity for anyone working in white-collared business. Founded in 2002 in Mountain View,

California, it is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Known as the Facebook of Business it

is characterized as having features such as alerts to whenever someone visits your page and

whenever you receive an offer by a business. The benefit of LinkedIn for a company is that the

pool of eligible people to fill a position within a company is just a matter of searching. Upon

visiting ones page, you can see where they have previously worked and what accolades they

have acquired. A harm of LinkedIn is that the potential for individuals to be less than truthful is

evident as well as the potential for former employees of your business to share their experience

working for a company (which if it is a former employee, may not be the kindest of things to

read).

Twitter is a platform for quick and readily-available content. Founded in 2006 and

headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company is amongst the most popular platforms

in the genre of social media. Characteristics of the platform is that posts are known as tweets

which up until recently were known for their 140 character limit, which forced users to be

creative with their tweets. Companies benefit from Twitter by developing their own pages which

are generally lead by a Social Media Management team that create their own style of

communicating to customers, generating a sense of community between the consumer and the
business. Companies also benefit from Twitter due to their non-invasive advertisement system

which implements tactics similar to Facebook allowing for customers to have advertisements

catered to them, making them more likely to be potential purchases. This goes hand-in-hand

with their impressive statistics boasting an impressive 24% of all Internet male users use Twitter

and 21% of all female users (2017, Aslam). A harm of Twitter, again similarly to Facebook, is

the potential of bad practice and missteps to be quickly and effectively broadcasted to

individuals, leading to potentially devastating consequences.

Lastly, Instagram is a picture-based platform that is a more unique social media outlet.

Founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and is now owned by Facebook, Inc.

Characteristics of Instagram consist of picture-based posts, where a picture has to be

associated with a post, and the ability to follow people you know and companies and entities

you choose. The benefits of Instagram to a business is the ability to be creative with

advertisements and be able to reach a vast audience with every post. Much like Twitter, pages

for companies are usually managed by a team within the company that help promote the image

of the business and provide answers for questions consumers have in a very speedy manner. A

harm of Instagram is the unique nature of Instagram makes it hard for companies to know what

their audience wants to see. Many companies pay for ad space on Instagram but yield very poor

returns due to lack of utilizing the capabilities. In a report by Nadav Hochman and Raz

Schwartz, they studied the visual rhythms used by users on Instagram compared to those in

contemporary art and found that users preferred the use of metagame features, which is the

use of features that are popular amongst users currently, and are more likely to visit and view

those that follow such trends (2012, Hochman and Schwartz).

In conclusion, companies that utilize social media platforms reap a hefty crop compared

to those that are behind the curve. The growth of social media is only increasing and with this

more competition for advertisement space. The use of the five platforms - Skype, Facebook,

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram - provide companies with instant connection to one another
and to their consumers and that is a very powerful tool if utilized correctly. I personally find that

the benefits grossly outweigh the harms and develop a similar system to that the government in

the United States has of Checks and Balances. The harms experienced by the business using

the platform are harms that are only available due to the openness of the social media model,

and companies are going to have to adjust their practices accordingly as I see the social media

trend evolving into something bigger and more necessary in years to come.

Aslam, Salman. Twitter by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts. Omnicore, 12

Aug. 2017, www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/.

Hochman, Nadav, and Raz Schwartz. Visualizing Instagram: Tracing Cultural Visual

Rhythms. AAAI Technical Report, 2012, pp. 14. UNCC,

www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM12/paper/viewFile/4782/5091.

Noyes, Dan. Top 20 Facebook Statistics - Updated November 2017. Zephoria Inc., Zephoria, 3

Nov. 2017, zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/.