One of my biggest concerns when I decided to blog on the topic of social media marketing was not to add to the noise online. I wanted to offer my own take on it, and as snarky as it is sometimes, blogging on social media is everywhere!
Someone is constantly blogging about the latest Facebook antics, or the latest photo filter wars between Instagram and Twitter, or even what’s trending and new. Who can keep up? More importantly, who has time to read all this crap anyway?
Well, I do. A lot of my job involves taking a look at these new platforms, before you have to. That way, I know which will be useful, and which you can continue to ignore. Things change fast with technology, so does the latest app, or social networking platform. They’re snatched up sometimes faster than you can snap and load your Instagram sushi pic. And before you know it, everything you once loved about your favorite app, changes. Often, for the worse.
Which brings me to my point, when I woke up this morning, my Facebook newsfeed was a homage of Instagram gripes and grumbles. People were just now understanding what Facebook’s recent acquisition would have on the popular platform. You can read all about the changes here, and what they mean to users.
I won’t add to that noise, but I did want to mention, we don’t own these social networking services. We are the customer, and the vessel for data collection. That’s it. We also need to keep in mind, they don’t care about user experience. They care about your data, ad revenue, and selling out for upwards billions of dollars.
As much as I love social media, networking online, building companies, and sharing my knowledge with others, I urge you to carefully read the TOS of your platforms before joining. They update this information all the time. Changes are made, companies are bought and sold, along with your data.
I’m not here to use scare tactics, but remind you, we don’t own the platforms that we divulge our every detail to, share our most intimate images with, we are simply borrowing space. I love this CopyBlogger article on the topic of digital sharecropping, and I think you will too so take a look here: http://www.copyblogger.com/digital-sharecropping/.
I leave you with this question, do you read the TOS on your favorite platforms before or after signing your life away to ads, or data collection? Will you change your habits on sites like Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook? Did you wake up this morning, and delete your Instagram account? Let me know in the comments below!
