Social Media **Use with Caution**

I have until recently, been a big fan of social media.

I’ve adopted each new fad and taken them as far as I can from a marketing point of view.

From initial reluctance, I’ve blogged every week and I’ve kept up the regular posts to LinkedIn. I’ve Facebooked, I’ve Pinterested, I’ve Twittered and I’ve Instagrammed.

I have considered it to be part of modern life – but I am seeing now that I’ve been hoodwinked. I’ve been conned into giving all of my personal details and life history to sites that then sell this information on to third parties – who then wish to sell you things.

I am beginning to tire of the games that the owners of these sites play.

We know that these sites are not provided for our benefit? Why would anybody create a free platform for people to interact socially?

A platform that’s has a free benefit for a non-profit purpose….duuuuuh ….no…just not happening?

It’s blindingly obvious that Facebook and Instagram are both about gleaning as much information as they can about our behaviour. What we like, what we don’t like, what are our shopping habits, what people aspire to have, to own etc. etc…..

It’s also obvious that these sites are addictive.

Once they have you hooked, they will bombard you with direct and also subliminal messages. The ‘like’ button is like a dose of adrenaline which keeps you wanting more and more.

So what if 350 people from Japan like your new *jacket…. does it really matter? Errrr no …it doesn’t. Their opinion just doesn’t matter, and even if it did – are they even ‘real’ anyway …even if they are real…. you will never meet them and their ‘like‘ of your clothes mean nothing….

What if nobody ‘likes’ your *jacket?

So long as you like it, that’s all that matters.

What is perhaps less obvious is the way that people can interpret your behaviour by the material that you post. People will judge you on what you like or don’t like, opinions that you have or even flippant comments made in jest – and some people it appears have no sense of humour at all.

It has come to my attention recently that people think I am brash, arrogant and materialistic – all this from the way my Instagram account has a plethora of cars, watches and clothes. I just thought it was a bit of harmless fun – but others have taken my ramblings as serious and have concluded that I am shallow.

For some reason it has also been concluded by others that I have been out and about having a great time with a variety of different women. In reality I haven’t been doing anything dodgy at all – in fact I haven’t been doing anything full stop – but pictures taken out of context have been misinterpreted….

You need to be very careful with these sites – use with extreme caution.

There can be consequences.

Me – I’m going cold turkey – binned ‘em all.

Mike C

*insert anything here – jacket/trousers/car /watch/view/behaviour etc. etc.