Facebook – zuckera

In the last post, I explored how social media impacts my life and how I personally use it. In this post I am going to give a commentary on the role I see social media playing in my future job. Social media is still quite young and much of its development is obviously speculation at this point, however, we have some really good ideas as to what it will look like.

David Berkowitz of adage.com believes that, “If you want to understand how people really use social media, spend some time with a pink-wearing, puppy-loving 10-year-old girl.” This article goes on to explain every major social media network from the point of view of his 12 and 14-year-old nieces. Berkowitz uses the idea that since the 10-year-olds will be the future that it makes sense that they would be the main users of social media in the future thus shaping the way that everyone else would use it. He says that the most popular social media hubs, Facebook and Twitter, will cease to exist and they will be replaced by other social medias that don’t have some of the negative connotations that the current ones do. His young nieces associate Facebook with the word creepy and he thinks that as they mature and get older they would look to another social media hub that is free from that kind of negative predisposition. Ultimately though I disagree with Berkowitz. I think that his 10 year old nieces will mature and their tastes will grow and change as their wants and desires change and mature.

If social media changes the way that he think it will in the next 10 years then it will be very hard for a company to use it for advertising purposes. He sees social media becoming a way for small groups of people to communicate instead a continued interconnectedness of people. He says that things like SnapChat and Skype will grow while Facebook and Twitter will die. It would be pretty hard to imagine a way that you could put ads on Skype or SnapChat that would be unobtrusive. If Social Media develops in this way then it probably wouldn’t have a use in my future job.

However, John Brandon of inc.com sees it completely differently. He believes that social media will become completely interconnected, almost ruling your life. If this happens then I think that using it in my job will be extremely important. It will be the easiest and most effective way to reach people. He says that each good or service will be connected to a social media network and that they will all share information and communicate with each other constantly to complete a complete profile of your life.

I can easily see myself as a social media manager in the future and if this vision comes to fruition then the successful integration of my brand into a viable and successful social media platform and then maintaining my brands spot there would be enough to keep me busy all day.

Berkowitz, D. (2013, October 4). The future of Social Media: how does a 10-year-old use it?. Retrieved November 11, 2013, from http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/future-social-media-a-10-year/244566/

Brandon, J. (2013, August 15). The fantastic, dystopian future of social networking . Retrieved November 11, 2013

Social media is probably the biggest technological advancement in the 21^st century. It creates a large online community the enables the sharing of information and news. Social media allows for many great things to happen. As great as it is, and as many advantages as it can give us, it can also cause a few problems like the over sharing of information. Personally, I use Twitter and Facebook. The lack of a smartphone in my life makes it a challenge to use many more of them on a consistent basis.

I use Twitter mainly for quick news and to market myself. Twitter allows me to follow so many diverse information sources. Over three quarters of the accounts that I follow are devoted to sports. Twitter is the first website I visit each day. I check what happened in sports the day before and then I proceed to read various blogs if anything catches my eye. Adam Kirsch points out in his article published in the New York Times, “Criticism is also a kind of reportage, and Twitter is an ideal way of breaking news,” This is another one of my main uses for Twitter. The amount of news on it makes it quite easy to stay up to date with current events. The diversity of information that Twitter grants me is the main reason that it is my social media outlet of choice. I see other people using it as a way of sharing information about their own lives. It usually ends up with a few pictures posted and a few sweeping statements about their lives. Beyond that, most people use Twitter as a way to express their opinions and exercise their voice. Whether that be with politics, or other pertinent news it allows people to voice their ideas and perhaps have a conversation about it.

I am on Facebook more than Twitter, however I find that I am much less active on Facebook. I use it more to keep up with my friends lives by looking at their old pictures or posts. I also use Facebook to chat with my friends, something that is hard to do on Twitter. I used to use Facebook for all my social media purposes, however, when I added Twitter into my social media cannon my activity on Twitter replaced my activity on Facebook. I haven’t posted a status in what seems like years, but I tweet every day. Despite my increased activity on Twitter, I still spend more time on Facebook than on Twitter.

I find that many of my friends use Facebook the same way I do; with limited activity but high frequency. However, I have many friends that use Facebook as a way to advertise themselves for a business, skill, or hobby that they have. Some of my friends are aspiring musicians or artists and they use Facebook as a way to generate interest and spread the word of their aspiration in hopes of an internet connection.

Moving forward I think social media will grow even more and become an extremely important part of everyone’s lives. It will make the world smaller and smaller and connect us more and more. Amanda LittleJohn said the following in an interview, “While I don’t believe the press release is dead, it has been transformed, to become this living, breathing thing.” She goes on to say that every release has to have a social element or it has no legs. I think social media has already altered PR so much and as social media grows so will PR.

Swallow, E. (2010, August 16). The future of public relations and social media. Retrieved

October 30, 2013, from http://mashable.com/2010/08/16/pr-social-media-future/

Kirsch, A. (2013, October 29). How has Twitter changed the role of the literary critic. In

New York Times. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2

013/11/03/books/review/how-has-twitter-changed-the-role-of-the-literary-critic.html?ref=socialmedia&_r=1&