Social networking

Social networking has changed the way people socialize for almost 10 years. Those new technologies open channels of socialization not only between people also between businesses and consumers.

Today it is very difficult to find a person who does not use a social network to share their experiences through the network, and people are also related through social networks, talk, share, comment on the moments and feelings of others, approve or disapprove these experiences through “likes or shares”. Such is the importance of social networks in today’s daily life that even a birthday greeting is done through the network, as we can see in the article “Antisocial Networking” says:  Recently when he mentioned that it was a friend’s birthday, she recalled, “I said ‘Great, are you going to give him a call and wish him Happy Birthday?’ He said, ‘No, I’m going to put it on his wall’.

One of the ways that companies use social networks today is the direct communication with consumers or potential consumers, as it did 20 years ago through the TV companies conduct advertising campaigns and marketing through social networking platforms. Another way is that companies use social networks to study the behavior of consumers, which product they prefer, how much are they willing to pay, through which channel they prefer to buy it, etc. This is one of the ways we are helping more companies today because they can adapt their products and services to the immediate needs of consumers without spending money on it.

Due to social networks now people do not need to live in the same city to communicate, share experiences and learn about the daily life of others, which is a big plus for families who do not live in the same city, distance couples or for anyone traveling around the world.

The problem here is that nobody is wondering themselves what happens with all personal and non-personal information that rise to the network. Where it goes? Who else can use it? Which level of privacy we have?. The issue of privacy is very ambiguous and no user is able to say you have 100% privacy of your information in the network, even the creator of face book’s sister, posted a picture in her private Facebook page, ensuring that this photo was private just for her friends and she does not know how a completely unknown woman got the picture and twit it. This case is explained in the article “Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn’t Private”.

Personally I believe that social networks are a very useful tool but all active members should be more careful about what they post, because nothing is private on the network.