It is wonderful indeed to be back here again, participating in yet another weekly featured content.
Hello Hive Learners!
If we could go back in time to maybe fifty years ago to spread the word about the internet to those living in that particular timeline and how far it has evolved and how it has transformed the state of the world today, surely they'd look at us like we're ridiculous.
Image is mine
To be honest, the knowledge that social media could be monetized wasn't really common knowledge until COVID 19 took the world by surprise and businesses, companies and workers alike had to source alternate means to make money while sitting at home. In times of trouble, social media became a source of consolation for a lot of people. I didn't even have knowledge about a lot of applications until the COVID era when all we had was the applications that we still use to this day.
Since then, monetizing social media has become a common thing and eight out of every ten persons are part of the group of people that aim to make it big through content creation and influencing the media.
Social media has really been helpful especially when it comes to monetizing and making money from it. It has helped a lot of businesses to thrive and most importantly, it has improved the process of getting employment and has made getting employed easier.
Nowadays, people do not need to journey many miles in search of vacancies with their CV in hand, instead it is right there at their fingertips. I know for a fact that every time I decide to scroll on Instagram, I see no less than 6-10 vacancy ads from companies and agencies that I don't even know from Adam, and that is just crazy!
There are even sites dedicated to connecting companies with willing workers and vice versa and there are those individuals who make it solely from creating content. And because of these benefits, social media has become the easiest thing to get your hands on when searching for information on anything in particular and though not everything in the world made it to the internet, a whole lot of things can be found on the internet.
Because of this, social media has been saturated with a lot of content, both the good and the bad and in our current day, usually the bad gets out first and faster than the good and by the time people recognize the good, the bad has left destruction in its wake.
One of the many ills of social media is the problem of the spread of fake news. In a time where the influencing culture is at an all time high and it seems very lucrative, people use it for bad things. One will hear cases of an ‘influencer’ being dragged to court because said ‘influencer' misled the public by spreading false news about a product that is dangerous but because they are all about the money, they choose to convince the masses to buy such products. One of the reasons I am not a fan of the influencing culture on social media is because of the blatant lies being sold to the public.
I always have it in the back of my mind that the product is never always as good as they claim it to be and they're only promoting it because they're targeting a specific group of people, hence the ridiculous prices.
Many people today want to be influencers without knowing that it takes a lot of dedication and integrity because one is not only promoting a product online for people to buy, but one is also giving the public an insight to their character and telling lies only serves to taint their reputation. There are only a few influencers that actually tell the truth without spreading false news about the products that they represent and they even go as far as calling out other influencers who choose to lie to the public about products that are bad for them.
There is also the issue of FAKE news. It always amazes me the rate at which fake news spreads and not only that, the number of people who readily consume such news and immediately believe it to be the truth. I had to learn the hard way to stop trusting anything that I see online whether it turns out to be true or not. I don't use certain applications because of how famous they are for spreading fake news and yet the number of users they get increases by the day.
Woe betide anyone caught in a compromising situation in public only for an individual to capture only 2 seconds of the whole thing, twist the story to their benefit and then pass it on to the media knowing that viewers will readily devour such content without thinking twice about its validity. This has led to the loss of lives, destruction of friendships and relationships and the total collapse of businesses. The funny thing is that many people believe that the only way they get to ‘trend’ is by spreading fake news and lies all over the internet to get attention that is fleeting.
Regardless, social media has been very helpful to mankind and will continue to do so for as long as it exists and the fact that it can be monetized only makes it better.
