I always feel conflicted by the idea of social media. The personal use of it makes me feel isolated and the professional use makes me feel divided as a person. It is common in the creative industries, also referred to as cultural industries in Asia, to use social media to expand on business (Henry C., 2008 p.9).
Music as Henry states is not just a domestic product but is export-orientated to mould future generations (2008 pp. 38, 50). This allows for the expansion of social media as a successful business platform. I know in this sense social media marketing would be beneficial to my own success.
I am apart of the digital native’s generation which has forced a change in marketing due to the access of the internet (Olivas-Lujan, M., & Bondarouk, T. 2013 pp.4, 5). The marketing aspects of social media is designed for companies, which I struggle with as I cannot distinguish myself personally and professionally (Olivas-Lujan, M., & Bondarouk, T. 2013 p.116). One major benefit for marketing on social media is that there are no geographic differences in use and availability of social media in major markets such as China and America (Olivas-Lujan, M., & Bondarouk, T. 2013 p.118). This allows for a personal benefit to marketing with low costs in the initial stages of marketing however, this also allows for more competitors.
Research states that the interaction through social media marketing breaks the physical and psychological barrier that the audience can experience (Olivas-Lujan, M., & Bondarouk, T. 2013 p.125).
Social media has given me mixed feelings in recent years and arguing with self to how it has manipulated my view of myself. Social media is now used to show you are part of the world and participating in life (Tuten, T., & Solomon, M., 2018 p.5). The use of social media can be broken into 4 distinct categories according to Tuten and Solomon, community, publishing, entertainment and commerce (2018 pp.12). These categories blurs for the use of self-promotion, publishing is the use of information as a promotion with interaction and engagement, and, commerce the storefront for a product (Tuten, T., & Solomon, M. 2018, pp.14, 16). These ideas contradict to me.
I always feel genuinely fake and superficial if I actually interact. This is the conditioning that social media creates (Deustch, B., 2018). It is able to make it easy to compare ourselves in success to other and hides all the struggles of life whilst we still express out opinions (Wagner, K., 2016). If all we see is perfection how do, we feel real. There is a strong correlation with mental illness and social media use in research and brain activity (Deustch, B., 2018). This is a sense of detachment and causes resentment in people which reaps indifference when tragedies happen (Ginn, D., 2018).
I feel that this struggle is caused from the inability I have to separate my professional and personal self because to me they are the same person. I know my interests will allows overlap and I will need to grow and accept the fact a façade is inevitable.
References
Deustch, B. (2018). Why Everyone and Everything on Social Media Is Fake. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/311421
Ginn, D. (2018). Social media's facade of the perfect life has made us lose our empathy - DIY Photography. Retrieved from https://www.diyphotography.net/social-medias-facade-of-the-perfect-life-has-made-us-lose-our-empathy/
Henry, C. (2008). Entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries (pp. 9, 38, 50). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub.
Olivas-Lujan, M., & Bondarouk, T. (2013). Social Media in Strategic Management (pp. 4, 5, 116, 118, 125). Bingley, U.K.: Emerald.
Tuten, T., & Solomon, M. (2018). Social Media Marketing (pp. 5, 12, 14, 16). Los Angeles: SAGE.
Wagner, K. (2016). Why Social Media Is All A Facade. Retrieved from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-social-media-is-all-facade
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