For me it's a hassle, and NOW they're necessary?!?!

Social Media is quickly becoming not only the standard for international communication between friends, but also a tool for advertising and education among other options. Careers are suddenly popping up that are focused on social media instruments and the benefits they can provide to large and quite established as well as new companies. According to GotSocialMedia.com, "Professionals in Marketing, PR, Advertising, and Journalism are incorporating Social Media strategies into their messaging."

Before college life, social media was not a priority in my life. Now, if I go more than a few days without checking all of my accounts (and believe me, I have quite a few), I can’t function correctly. I feel like I’m cut off from the world—which is technically true because I do not have a direct connection to my family in Mexico or my friends in Europe—but it’s becoming more than a dependency. In this technological and information era, social media is absolutely NECESSARY to understand and use.

I was probably about 14 when I started my first social network account. I opened a hi5 account and for those that don’t recognize the name, it’s used quite often in other countries like Mexico, which is the reason I opened it in the first place.

Then came MySpace. That I began when I was 16. That was an addiction for me for about six months. After high school, my friends practically DEMANDED that I get a Facebook account. They told me it was created primarily for university students, but now it seems EVERYONE has one.



But social media is not just social interaction between friends. YouTube has created an entire visual dimension available worldwide. People can build on a foundation, on just a simple idea and create something entirely innovative in the most creative fashions. It can be an instant rise to fame, like those users on MySpace that upload their personal songs and then get discovered.

For this class, we had to start these social media networks: Twitter, Blogger, and LinkedIn. Blogger is actually one I enjoy because I created a shared account with four friends and since we’re all in different places right now, we have the easiest way to communicate.

My problem with Twitter—and probably many people’s problem with it—is that we don’t have Internet access on our phone. To constantly post ideas and status updates on our Twitter, we cannot be sitting at our desk on the computer doing the same things (like homework for example) and be able to create interest for our followers. For example, I have to recap the day’s events into one post because I’m not actually doing anything that is worth mentioning at the exact moment I’m posting it.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site. Users can post their work experience and current positions as well as their interests in certain fields. However, I have no “valuable” work experience. (For some reason, I have never been hired for a job except for a Wal-Mart Remodeling Associate and I worked for less than two months). Because I have no real work experience, my profile on LinkedIn is virtually worthless right now. I have to build that before I can start connecting to people.

Currently, I have these social network accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Blogger (two accounts) LinkedIn, MySpace, Hi5, Metroflog, a subscription to a daily blog about life lessons entitled “Things I wish I had taught my son…and still can,” UNYK, Bebo, Tagged, Netlog, etc. Keeping up with everything is becoming a hassle, not to mention I use it frequently at the beginning and then lose interest—like many of the social media users of today. Will it ever end?

It might not, but these six myths about social media need to be taken into perspective as well. The myth I found most disappointing to find on the list the belief that when some project or interesting person is using social media, it might never get discovered. “Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you've got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby.”