Looking forward to 2006, the growth rate of social media is tremendously high. Facebook and Twitter are social media that have grown very quickly and captured millions of users in just a few years. The adult social media users in the USA increased from 8% to 72% since 2005. Many people are grabbing benefits from such social networks From progressed nations to under-developed countries. It has allowed people to connect with others and establish a virtual community.
Looking from another side, social media has also affected society in a negative way. But releasing that everything has good as well as bad aspects, it's up to people how they used it.
Now, let's discuss the practical advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media
Advantages
1.Reach large audiences
It's a wonderful opportunity for you to reach a large pool of people if you are running a business. There are millions of people who are using social media platfroms actively. Let's have a look at data by Pew Research Center on U.S adults using social media sites.
| Social Media | Users |
YouTube | 73% |
| 68% | |
| 29% | |
| 35% | |
| 24% | |
| Snapchat | 27% |
The data above clearly shows that you have good opportunities to reach large audiences. Using these social media platforms you can generate great leads and engagements.
You can target locals and tourists creating social ads or boosting organic posts using social media like Facebook.
2.Education
Several educational technology researchers have supported social networks in the educational process. Distance education has been possible due to the rise in social networking site and a general interest in students.
Social media helps to educate people from experts and professionals and you can follow any online expert to enhance your knowledge in particular fields.
You can gain knowledge regardless of your education background and location without paying for it.
3.Allows to create organic content
The incredible benefit of social media is the ability to post organic content. You are provided with the opportunity to connect with valuable leads and engagements for free. This is the main reason why many companies are using these platforms.
These platforms allow users to create and post content as much as you want. You can create and post content of various formats like audio, image, video etc.
This is a great way to advertise your business and brand to the interested audiences.
4.Information and updates
The main advantages of using social media are that you will be able to know what's happening worldwide. You can conduct research using social media to find out true information and facts because television and newspaper these days are biased and fails to convey a true message.
5.Direct connection with audiences
Social media is one of the excellent marketing strategies which allows establishing a connection with the audience directly. You can figure out who is interested in your business by observing who is following your social media account.
Social media allows you to know your audiences better which helps you to deliver valuable content to them. Creating more and more personalized content helps to generate more leads and engagements.
You can easily resolve any issues with your audiences and address them personally which helps to build your brand in a positive light.
By observing insights about your customers, you can adapt your strategies for better users experience. You can know your audience's perception of your business and what they think about your company.
6.Helps in building communities
Our world has people with different beliefs and religions. Social media provides opportunities to build and participate in the community or own religions and beliefs to learn and discuss it. People from different countries and communities can connect to share and discuss related stuff.
For example, music lovers can join communities related to music and songs.
7.Helps to build brand
You can have a better chance to build your brand using social media network. You can post your organic content for free to build your brand. More and more people will get exposed to your brands which helps to build the brand's royalty.
If people know well about your brand and are satisfied with your service, they tend to buy products from you.
You can even build your brand with the help to social media shares, retweet and re-pin. People can share your content with their friends and families which is an excellent way to gain new leads.
8.Noble cause
Social media allows promoting NGO, donations and other social welfare activities for needy people. Social media platforms help to provide help and donations to needy people quickly.
Disadvantages
1.Cyberbullying
Over the past, most of the children have become a victim of cyberbullying according to a report published by PewCenter.org. It has been very easy for anyone to bully on the internet without being tracked by creating a fake account. Such activities like threats, intimidation messages create discomfort and chaos in society.
2.Negative feedback
People tend to post the content they love and also share the bad experiences they didn't love. People have a door open to share a bad experience with others about your business if they get poor experience from your business.
People can leave a negative review on your business page and share negative experience on platforms like Facebook.
On Twitter, people can tag a company sharing negative experiences and can spread across the network by retweeting it.
In fact, social media are a catalyst for complaining and leaving negative comments and having too much negative feedback can badly affect your future marketing efforts.
The best way to tackle these negative feedbacks is to respond to it rather than running away from it. You shouldn't leave people's complains and comments unaddressed as keep in mind that no everyone is going to have a positive experience with your business.
3.Hacking
Your personal privacy and data can get hacked easily and shared over the internet. This can cause loss to your business as well as your personal life. Your personal account can get hacked and suffer heavy financial loss.
As you know clearly that many Facebook and Twitter accounts have been hacked in the past. Many people's individual accounts got affected because hackers posted irrelevant content in their personal account. This is one of the most dangerous demerits of using social media.
4.No immediate results
Many companies seek immediate results by investing in social media marketing strategies. But you won't see immediate results with social media networking.
Just posting one content doesn't determine the success of your advertising campaign. You should post organic content on a regular basis to make your campaign successful.
You should be patient and wait to see true results gradually. The best thing you can do to make your campaign grow quickly is to track your performance and adopt strategies accordingly.
5.Addiction
Social media is so addictive that it can affect and disturb personal life badly. Mostly teenagers are addicted to social media and get cut off from society eventually.
This addiction wastes the valuable time that could be used for productive tasks and activities.
6.Cheating and relationships issues
Most of the people today are using the social media platform to the purpose and marry each other. Most of the time they turn to be wrong in making their decisions and part ways.
Many couples have cheated each other by providing incorrect information and showing fake feelings.
7.Cause of death
People don't die by using it but by following stunts and crazy stuff over the internet. Normal people also tend to follow life-threatening kinds of stuff like doing jump over the trains, bike stunts and many more. These stunts are mostly copied by teenagers which becomes their cause of death
8.Health issues.
Your health can be negatively affected due to the excessive use of social media networks. Most of the people get lazy due to its excessive use and forget to exercise for maintaining good health.
This results in a disorder in routine life and health.
Conclusion
We have listed a few advantages and disadvantages of social media but debate about it is to be continued. You should not worry if you are using these media in moderation but keep in mind not to use it excessively. It really improves your life, education and business if used correctly.
Google starts new Pinterest like social network called Keen.
Readers Comment