Social Media Is A Gift & A Curse

Social media is a gift for many reasons, but, if you aren’t careful it can become a nightmare.

Many individuals and brands use social media for the instant and, almost always, free self marketing and promoting that it offers for their businesses. It heightens brand awareness and visibility in real time. This is true for social sharing sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google Hangout, and even some newer sites popping up like What’s App, Snap Chat.

Regardless of how you choose to use these social networking sites, there are several things you need to consider in maintaining professionalism and brand consistency.

1. First, if you have a business page that you manage and share content on behalf of, you’ll need to separate your professional hat from your personal. In hindsight I suggest separating your professional profile from your personal.

2. With that being said, after you’re done separating your personal from your professional profiles you may want to consider not over-sharing information, especially personal information. Whether you believe it or not, you’re inviting spectators to make assumptions, comment and re-share things you may not want them to simply but putting it out there in cyberspace.

One of the worst ways I, sometimes, see social media sites being used is when followers have feuds in comments sections. I get it, you want to express a thought and discuss a subject matter that you’re passionate about, but remember, arguing about it won’t get your point across effectively.

3. Do not bash or harass another person/entity on your social feeds. Projecting anything negative, whether true, is a reflection on you and your inability to remain professional and rational. This goes back to maintaining professionalism.

Think about this for a moment. What message and ideologies do you want your brand to represent? Focus on projecting imagery, content and messages that best align with those goals.

4. Social networking can be time consuming. As much fun and engaging your time spent on social media can be, it can also be time consuming. It’s important to allocate the best time/s to use these sites and prep content you’d like to share in order to save yourself wasted time. Planning your content you’d like to share with your followers will also help you to be more productive in other areas of your life. My suggestion, stick to a posting schedule.

5. Not only can social media be time consuming, it can also be a distraction. Have you ever logged on to your favorite social networking site, click on a link or profile suggestion and before you know it, you’ve just spend 30 minutes or more simply browsing and being bounced around from one link/profile to another? If you’ve answered ‘yes,’ I can relate.

It’s important to know when to back away from social media. There’s a physical world out there you may be missing out on because your life revolves around the net. If you find that you’re spending way too much time browsing and not enough on being productive, it’s time to step away from your fave networking site. Take mini breaks if you have to, but, spend your time wisely.

Sweethearts, I’d love to know some more ways you’ve found social media to be a gift and a curse. Do share!

(Photo: Playbuzz.com)

Written By: Ms. Toni
Twitter: @i_am_mstoni
Instagram: @iammstoni
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