Posts tagged social media

A Dystopian Social Media Functionality

Don’t know about you, but I always felt rather unease when seeing graphic posts for good causes on social media. Quite confusing and not really sure how to proceed, I must admit.

National Geographic, for example, is trying to raise awareness on a number of issues on social media (particularly on Instagram). Right now, they are running a campaign showcasing the decision of the PRC government to lift the ban on importing animal parts used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Yesterday, they published a rather graphic picture of a tiger trapped under burning firewood. Today, they opted for showing the carcasses after the fire has done its job. On both occasions, the number of likes showed me – well above the 250 000.

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Followers-Shmollowers

At the rise of social media, the number of followers one has been a big thing. For many it still is. To the extent that influence is a bliss, that is. Or the proverbial “size matters for some and for others not much.”

I used to be very active on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, to the point that I had more than 250 interactions a day. I guess I could be have been called an influencer or a guru, because I had more than 5 500 followers on Twitter and over 22 000 on Instagram. Mainly, cause I was running growth hacking experiments.

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To Bark At The Wrong Tree

Last year, the incredibly depressing by many counts 2016, we’ve got plenty of reasons to bark at the wrong tree. And more specifically, to claim that social media is the main reason for Brexit, the election of Trump and the hybrid war stemming from the Kremlin.

But were these reasons justified? Is Facebook, Twitter or Google guilty of spreading post-truths, false information or outright lies?

They certainly helped, but they are not the ones to blame. At least not the level we have been observing lately.

People believe in what they want to believe. And in many cases, reason plays the smallest part in someone’s thinking process. The social networks sites have just provided a great platform to amplify the message. Any type of messages, that is.

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