Pros & Cons of Social Media and Strategy

Do you use social media? I pondered about advantages and disadvantages of social media and how we use it in a smart way. Facebook and Twitter require engagement that is beyond my capacity at the moment. As I'm working on new picture book projects, while being busy with the preparation of the book launch, the exhibition, watercolour workshops, competitions and so ons. It's enough and good work load, although some people ask me to join it. I'm still thinking of joining it or not, while observing social phonomena related to social media. In this very busy social media era, it's very important to hold the stance firmly and have a direction to go. Yet, we need to have flexibility that balances between catch-up with the trend of time and our own identity or life style. 

In the analysis of advantages and disadvantages of social media,

Benefits 

• Overcome time and distance, cost effective communication 
• Two-way communication is possible eg) one-many, many-one, many-many  
• Little capital is needed, inexpensive = Reduce cost of art sale on market
• Small business and emerging enterprenor can compete with big and established brand name companies
• Direct and wide access with a third party on a global market, networking 
• Great exposure on a national and international market
• Attract potential clients on a global market 
• Intense engagement with clients/site visitors/customers   

Deficits

• Intrusion of privacy and copyrights eg) Naked self-presentation on net. Image theft. Leak of information.  
• Risk of maliciously harmful feedbacks, stalking etc by boudless strangers.  
• Questionable reliability and validity of information eg) Fake identity. eg) How long will information remain on net?   
• Low awareness of responsibility of information sources 
• Laws are behind social media issues. eg) Dilemma/conflict between freedom of speech/individual interest and censorship/public interest.   
• Insecure, unsafe and vulnerable individuals on internet  
• Blurry line between "private" and "public" 
• Incessantly feed information on a daily base = Excessive engagement. Pressure on information senders. 
• Exclusion of a specific group eg) people without site membership or computer skills. 
• Its unpredictable impact on our future lives and society  

What else?
My research has found that current research essays are behind to well discuss the impact of social media and social changing. It seems that our society is rapidly moving away before analysing social media! Or data collection is difficult = Collected data gets out of date = too fast to change. What a busy time we are living! No one knows what's the impact of social media on our society and our lives. If so, we want to use internet and social media in a wise and healthy way.

Some suggestions to be a smart user of social media

• Need to know legal knowledge at least "Copyrights Law," and "DMCA takedown notice".  Study well and stay safe. **Each country has a different national law, but we need to know both national and international laws. 
• Check where to get help in case of hacker, image theft etc. Prepare the worst scenario or prepare rain while a sunny day. 
• Respect the privacy of individuals = Get a person's permission to post something related to personal information. Remember "confidentiality of information".  
• Don't open up or touch fishy information. Access first-hand information and use it. 
• Clarify information sources and show it ( eg. I use a "bibliography" like below). It is a social manner and "fair use" of information protects you from illegal copyrights intrusion.   

What do you think? Or if you have had any headache in your internet experiences and if you have more suggestions, let us share them (*if you can. I respect privacy). In art activities, I'd tell myself, "Have my own colour". The same is true of my internet activities. Being as an information sender, it's important to take the responsibility of sending information. I might be behind a busy time and rapidly changing society though, I'll enjoy my own pace so far. I'm really happy to know regular visitors and new visitors coming to this weekly blog. I appreciate YOUR visits! Thank you for sharing time and pondering about many things in my posts!
Oh, yes, I'm working on the selection of art works for the exhibitions and labelling along the plan and creating more images for the People of Parramatta like above.
Friends, Happy Painting! Let us be smart social media users! 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edosomwan S, Kouame D, Prakasan K, Seymour, T and Watson J (2011) "The History of Social Media and its Impact on Business", The Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 2011, Vol. 16, No.3 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.458.6848&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Murthy D (2010)  "Towards a Sociological Understanding of Social Media: Theorizing Twitter" http://www.darkmatter101.org/wiki/lib/plugins/fckg/fckeditor/userfiles/file/lib/scripts/jquery/jquery-ui-theme/images/towards_a_sociological_understanding_of_social_media-_theorizing_twitter.pdf

Pros & Cons of Social Media and Strategy