What Is Social Media?

To me social media is a combination of communicating with people and sharing who you are and what you represent in the process, as well as a place where people can research and discover things currently happening or that have already happened in society. Social media is what connects us to the world around us. 

Think of all the social media platforms right now. Majority of them if not all of them allow people to communicate their own individual beliefs and ideas. This is one of the cool things that social media has to offer. 

You can learn so much about people based on their personal beliefs that are posted to social media. On the downside to this, you have to be aware if the story has any credibility or not as well. Everyone needs to be careful not to believe everything they read on the internet until they do more research and investigate the situation.

One of the neat things that social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter have allowed us to do is keep in contact with people as we journey through life. We are able to see photos and read comments that people share of big events and celebrate moments. This all happens in real time. We can snap and post a photo in seconds and other people are able to comment and like something that we have shared.

This is another reason why we need to be aware of our social media reputation. Once something is available or uploaded online it is never taken away. Even though we make think we have deleted or erased something, someone else could have already had the quote or photo saved. 

I am very cautious about what is represented about me through social media. I have always been afraid of even creating accounts and belonging to websites just because I did not like the idea of people knowing things about my personal life. However, you can have a presence in social media and not be afraid about what people can find out about your life.

Every social media site offers privacy settings. These settings are there for you to take advantage of. By keeping privacy settings on your sites in control you not only block people you do not want finding you from finding you, but also show potential employers that you are aware of your social media presence and know how to maintain it.