How Does Instagram Make Us Feel?

I hate taking pictures. I am not a photogenic person and Instagram has not been my go to social media site and there's good reason for that. Instagram feeds off of people who take pictures of themselves and how good they look that day, but how is it really making users feel about their appearance? In an article I read titled "Selfie Loathing: Here's Why Instagram is Even More Depressing Than Facebook" It talks about users self esteem and how Instagram is about making their pictures a contest. This can result in users feeling depressed or lonely about themselves. If no one likes it or views it, we might feel ugly or not worth our friends time. It shows the self esteem issue of Instagram and how it can send users into depression and even touches on stalkerish tendencies.

I asked myself how this can relate to business and I found an interesting view. If a company sells beauty products then having an Instagram account could be a money making machine! Feeding on low self esteem individuals can be a source of a great marketing opportunity. For instance, you have teenage girls who seem to have a really big issue with how they look each morning and when posting a picture to Instagram they want to feel attractive for all to see. Companies can really profit if they hon in on these Instagram accounts.

As for me and my lack of interest in Instagram, my opinion won't change. I do not like pictures and I won't post very many to the internet for all to see, but if I am a company I am going to use this social media tool to my advantage and try and appeal to those for feel unappealing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/07/instagram_and_self_esteem_why_the_photo_sharing_network_is_even_more_depressing.html

Discovering a Deeper Side to Twitter

Twitter has become an extremely popular way to communicate via social media, but there is a stronger connection for each tweet that has ever been sent. In an article published by Paul Ford on the Bloomberg Businessweek website shows a deeper connection most users don't realize. The article is titled "The Hidden Technology That Makes Twitter Huge" and it goes on to talk about how each tweet has the power and capability to be seen everywhere on the internet around the world. The article talks about how each tweet will always be attached with a creator, a date and time and the contents and other things attached to it in 140 characters.. thats powerful. They never go away even if the self life of a tweet is an hour, they can always be dug up and will always be somewhere for access. In my opinion whether or not we want our tweets out to everyone in the world.. they will be. Businesses have power to help and to save their business by using social media and twitter is on the rise. For businesses this power that each tweet has is a great thing because to serves as a powerful tool for customers to use and in return businesses will profit. For personal users, watch out! if every tweet you send is accessible to absolutely everyone, business owners can surely get ahold of it. Getting a job will be tough if you don't have clean tweets even if you posted it years ago. Businesses will continue to profit from Twitter, so if your business doesn't have an account, you better get one quick or crumble and go out of business. This new social media craze is not a fad, it is here to stay forever.




http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-07/the-hidden-technology-that-makes-twitter-huge

Facebook and the Daunting Like Button

I read an interesting article about Facebook and the use of the like button. This article is titled "I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here's What It Did to Me." This article was about the writer deciding to do an experiment in which he liked everything that showed up on his news feed for 48 hours, whether he actually liked the post or not he liked everything on his news feed. The article goes on to say that Facebook uses an algorithm in what you will see next on your news feed. It takes the likes and the page views of others to calculate which statuses you will see most of. It touches on business trying to advertise their products with filling your feed if you like their company. It mentions the ability to manipulate how the person posting the status reacts to how many likes he/she gets from their post. Most of us feel a sense of power and popularity the more likes we get on a status. It can boost anyones self esteem and motivates us to post more and more to get more likes on our page. An even more interesting side of social media is the ads and relateds pages (If you like Farmville, you will get ads and more posts about Farmville). Soon enough your page gets filled with ads, political garbage and the celebrity life. Articles will fill your feed instead of your friends posts. I found this to be a relating topic to all Facebook users in today's society. Why do we press the Like Button and what does it do for the person posting the status? I think every user has posts they want everyone to like and when the majority of people like it.. We get a sense of pride and a boost of confidence, but what is it about social media that pumps everybody up? When did our society start caring more about likes on Facebook than actually having good debates and conversations with friends in person? Ads will forever be apart of our lives and all over social media, but I encourage you Facebook addicts to stop liking things for the sake of pressing a button, but rather show your interest towards others with a more deeper personal connection.



http://www.wired.com/2014/08/i-liked-everything-i-saw-on-facebook-for-two-days-heres-what-it-did-to-me/

About Me

Hi my name is Aaron Soltow and this is my blog. I currently attend Southwest Baptist University and will be graduating in December, 2014 with a degree in Business Management. I am currently engaged  and will be getting married in July, 2015. A few things to know about me is that I love baseball and I watch the St. Louis Cardinals every game when I am able to. I like all kinds of sports, but baseball is my favorite one. I like to watch shows and movies when I have the time but I refuse to buy a Netflix account because I am cheap and hate spending money!