Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have become increasingly popular over the years. These two sites are big for sharing about your life, sometimes very personal aspects of it, and allow for your family and friends to stay connected to you. Sharing pictures of your weekend out on the town might not be something you want your business colleagues to see, but is something fun you may want to share with your friends. For that reason, I feel that sites like this, which encourage you to share your more "personal" endeavors, are considered "personal use sites". In example, Facebook statuses often consist of thoughts or feelings on particular subjects that you may not consider of interest or importance, in a business sense. Some more examples would include social media apps such as Snapchat and Twitter.
On the other hand, using sites like LinkedIn, Google+, and Glassdoor are specifically meant for purposes involving business. Since these sites offer resume sharing and allow you to share your experience and interests, in a professional way, they are geared at making business connections. Sites such as YouTube can also be used as a creative way to make a business impact. A site like YouTube is specifically good for sharing content that can serve as great visual material about you or your company.
Above I talk about the way these sites were created to relate more to either the business or personal spectrum, but I believe most social media sites double as both. It has become common, and smart, practice to use multiple social media sites as tools for building business and keeping up with your social circle, in one place. Sites like Instagram and Facebook allow pages to be created from a business perspective as well and are often extremely helpful for promoting new business endeavors! Google can of course be used to keep in touch with friends and family, in a personal manner. What I really feel is that there is not much limitation on how or what you use social media for nowadays. I think it is what makes it more popular because most of these sites double as business and personal sites.
What I found insightful from your post was when you mentioned that "it has become common, and smart, practice to use multiple social media sites" for both personal and professional use. I agree there some conflict between where it is appropriate to post personable content and professional content. I think the more outlet you are on that more content you can segment to each platform. For example, LinkedIn will only be used for making business connections.
ReplyDelete