Social Media Report: Analysis of Security, Privacy, and Business Use

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of social media, encompassing its positive and negative impacts, including aspects like enhanced connectivity, marketing potential, and its role in noble causes, while also addressing concerns such as cybercrime, health issues, and negative political effects. The report delves into the challenges of security and privacy within social media, such as virus and malware issues and hacking, and suggests measures like training and anti-virus software. Furthermore, it compares and contrasts Facebook and YouTube, evaluating their features, applications, and suitability for businesses, highlighting their roles in communication and marketing. The report concludes by discussing the significance of social media as a communication tool, emphasizing its cost-effectiveness and efficiency in disseminating information and facilitating customer feedback.

Social Media
Facebook and YouTube

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Positive and Negative aspects of Social Media......................................................................1
Challenges and Measures of Security and Privacy in usage of Social Media........................3
Selection and Comparison of two Social Media Examples....................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Social media can be referred to as the applications as well as websites which are
developed with a view to enable individuals to share messages in a quick manner. Social media
platforms can be accessed via smartphone, tablet or computer PC (Hunter, 2019). The major
platforms in the current era of social media are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, YouTube and SnapChat. The present report seeks to provide an overview of positive
and negative aspects of social media. In addition to this, it contains challenges and measures of
security and privacy in relation to usage of social media. Besides this, the examples of 2 social
media and differences between them on some bases are given.
Positive and Negative aspects of Social Media
Social media was first started with publishing business content. In relation to marketing,
social media involves the use of multiple applications and platforms to build up new connections
and maintaining them with the audience for a long time (Rosemann, 2019). There are a wide
range of social media platforms that help businesses to communicate their mission, vision and
objectives among the people. There are multiple social media accounts which help brands to stay
connected with fans and followers all the time and market their products and policies effectively.
It is essential to gain knowledge of the positive as well as negative aspects of social
media. The same is done underneath:-
Positive Aspects of Social Media
Enhance Connectivity: Social media is regarded to be an emerging marketing and
communication trend, which is effective in establishing network of an entity with the public at
large. It is further analysed that social media is even used by individuals to set connectivity with
others in their leisure time.
Use in marketing: A good marketing is what a business needs to interact with new and
potential customers as well as to maintain genuine relations with the existing ones (Zachar,
2020). There are various kinds of media and promotional tools used by companies for the
purpose of marketing but the major source of positive outcome owes to the utilisation of social
media. Effective social media marketing leads to increase in the value of brand and sales along
with enhancement of online traffic.
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Use in noble causes: Social media over the course of time is even being used by the
individuals or organisations for the purpose of charitable or other noble causes. In this regard, it
is analysed that the noble campaigns can be directly targeted to required audience with the help
of social media. Further, awareness about the same or funds for the same can also be entailed
through publishing information of the noble cause on different social media platforms.
Source of income for some individuals: Social media is one of the most lucrative and
rapidly revenue generating platforms. Hereby, individuals or organisations can earn money
through selling ads, sponsored content, sale of items over social media platforms, blogging and
many more.
Negative Aspects of Social Media
Social media encompasses the provision of a number of electronic platforms to its
registered user. With the use of social media, users can easily get connected with their friends,
family and relatives. At present time, the use of social media has inflated due to up gradation in
technology (Foxworth, Hashey and Sukhram, 2019). However, there are certain adverse
influences of social media which need to be taken into account in a timely manner to deal with
them in a timely manner. Thus, the negative aspects of using social media are mentioned below:-
Increasing rate of cyber crimes: The rate of cybercrime has increased due to the use of
social media. Now, hackers can easily get passwords of bank accounts with the use of social
media. Hackers can easily get personal information of peoples, and use it to hack their accounts.
Heath issues: Due to use of social media, human beings suffer from various mental
health issues. Individuals suffer from depression and anxiety. Spending long time on social
media people can make people suffer from various eye problems.
Fear of missing it: It is a situation where individual get addicted of social media. People
check their phone continuously so that they can check if anyone invited them or scrolling
Instagram continuously to check stories. This places a severe impact over the teenagers.
Bad image: According to researchers, uses of social media badly impact on teenagers.
Teens try to look good at social media so they get affected by the negative comments (Urbach
and Ahlemann, 2019). They try to looks like celebrities, so social media has an adverse effect
upon the teenagers.
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Negative political effect: Politicians use social media for their promotions. Social media
is also an important reason of fights among various political parties (Beetham and Sharpe, 2019).
It is the reason of communication bias. Politicians show their fake images to impress people.
Adverse impact over families: Due to use of social media, families get divided.
Everyone is busy with their phones and they don't have time to talk with their family members.
People are not getting in touch with their families. They only show false images of their family
on social media.
Challenges and Measures of Security and Privacy in usage of Social Media
Security and privacy are the prime concerns of individuals as well as organisations while
making use of social media. In this regard, it is necessary to gain knowledge of such concerns in
a timely manner so as to reduce the negative outcomes of the same. These challenges are
discussed in a detailed manner as follows:-
Challenges
Virus and Malware Issues:
One of the biggest challenges linked to usage of social media by businesses or individuals
is being affected by malware and virus. Whenever a firm uses any social media platform such as
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or YouTube, it faces huge risk of being stuck
by this constraint as this can take control of the whole system within a matter of minutes
(Bilyalova, Salimova and Zelenina, 2019). This may even result in corrupting the whole system.
Hacking:
Yet another challenge related to social media usage is hacking. This is an illegal activity
whereby a trespasser intends to steal the confidential information of a party for malicious
purposes. Such data can be used by the hacker for illegal purposes. This is a common issues that
has been affecting users of social media over the course of time. There are various types of
hacking such as Denial of Service, Waterhole attacks, Fake WAP, Phishing, ClickJacking
Attacks and many more.
Measures of Security and Privacy
There are various initiatives through which organisations can deal with security and
privacy concerns. These are discussed in a detailed manner as follows:-
Training:
Companies across the globe can conduct training sessions with a view to acquaint
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individuals belonging to the organisation with the measures to prevent being affected by privacy
and security concerns. This serves as an effective measure through which a firm is able to create
awareness among employees regarding the ways through which countering hacking or malware
becomes easy.
Anti-Virus:
This is a type of program which is created with a view to ensure protection of computer
from virus, malware, spyware, botnet, keylogger etc. This is a software application which is
installed in computer or mobiles to provide assistance to companies in protecting their system as
well as confidential data from being stolen by a third party (Younis and Gishen, 2019).
Selection and Comparison of two Social Media Examples
Facebook
Facebook is an American social media and networking company which is situated at
California, United States (PArrIS and ESTrADA, 2019). The organisation was founded by Mark
Zuckerberg with his room mates. It was started in 2005 the main aim of this company to provides
an digital platform to to their registered users through which they keep in touch with their friends
relative. Facebook provides so many features to their users. Any registered user can create and
upload their picture and video. The brief overview of this social media platform is given
underneath:-
Features
Facebook remains the largest social media platform thus it has a strong brand value and
strong goodwill image among its rivalry. This positioning and likelihood of people towards this
platforms is due to the varied features that it provides to its users. Some of its most unique and
effective features which gain the attention of businesses as well as individuals are organizing the
list, groups, messages, royalty free music, live streaming to multiple pages, legacy contact,
scrap-booking, sharing 3D photos.
Application
This social media platform can be used by an organisation by posting pictures, clips,
videos, ads etc. This provides assistance to corporations in establishing a connection with
customers and appealing to them in an effective manner (Mosweu and Ngoepe, 2019).
Suitability
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This social media platform is suitable for automotive companies as they can flaunt the
stylish and lucrative features of the vehicles on Facebook with the help of ads, photos, short
clips, videos, campaigns etc. By leveraging this social media platform, automotive companies
can gain the attention of large number of individuals at a single point of time. This will influence
their purchase behaviour and persuade them to make a purchase.
YouTube:
YouTube is an American video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California.
Three former PayPal employees - Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim created the
service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion;
YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries (Arnold and Boggs, 2019). YouTube
allows users to upload, view, rate, share, add to playlists, report, comment on videos, and
subscribe to other users. This is a prominent social media platform which enables users to
communicate their message to public in the form of videos. The overview of this platform is
given underneath:-
Features
YouTube is one of the most widely used platforms in the world of social media owing to
the impeccable features it tends to offer to its users. Some of them include subscriber
notifications, easy access to subs. feed, video management on the go, 360-Degree videos, better
live streams and many more (Gray and Palaiologou, 2019). These features gain the attention of
individuals and firms towards it and make them use this platform for varied purposes.
Application
The application of YouTube is regarded to be very simple as its only requirement from
individuals or firms is recording and uploading videos or short clips with the help of internet. In
this relation, it is determined that many large and small scale organisations at present make use
of this platform for the purpose of uploading their promotional content and thereby gaining the
attention of people across the globe towards it.
Suitability
It is most suitable for service sector businesses as the organisations belonging to this
sector do not have any physical component to gain the attention of people towards their offerings
(Bellandi, De Propris and Santini, 2019). Thus, by showcasing their services in ads, campaigns
or any other kind of promotional content over YouTube, companies can build understanding and
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awareness of their offerings among the public at large. This would captivate the attention of
customers and persuade them to experience the services offered by the service sector entity.
Social Media as a Communications Tool:
Social Media across the world is taken into use by companies or individuals for the
purpose of building networking with large number of individuals at a single point of time
(Urbach and Röglinger, 2019). It serves as a cost effective and efficient means of communication
which spreads information about a product, service, event or person within a time span of some
seconds. It is also used by firms for the purpose of taking feedbacks from customers upon the
products and services offered to them.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above information, it can be determined that social media is a digital
platform which is used by individuals and organisations across the globe in their leisure time or
for commercial purposes. In addition to this, it has been acknowledged that it has positive and
negative aspects associated with it which need to be duly taken into account. Further, it is
recognised that there are a number of security and privacy challenges which are linked to the
usage of social media by individuals or firms. Effective measures need to be taken in a timely
manner so as to lower the consequences linked to same.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Beetham, H. and Sharpe, R., 2019. Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: Principles and
Practices of Design. Routledge.
Bellandi, M., De Propris, L. and Santini, E., 2019. Industry 4.0+ challenges to local productive
systems and place based integrated industrial policies. In Transforming Industrial
Policy for the Digital Age. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bilyalova, A.A., Salimova, D.A. and Zelenina, T.I., 2019, May. Digital transformation in
education. In International Conference on Integrated Science (pp. 265-276). Springer,
Cham.
Foxworth, L.L., Hashey, A. and Sukhram, D.P., 2019. Writing in the Digital Age: An
Investigation of Digital Writing Proficiency Among Students With and Without
LD. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 35(5), pp.445-457.
Gray, C. and Palaiologou, I. eds., 2019. Early Learning in the Digital Age. SAGE Publications
Limited.
Hunter, J., 2019. Pedagogy, leading from the middle and digital technologies: Potent forces for
STEM education in Australian primary schools. Australian Educational Leader, 41(2),
p.26.
Mosweu, O. and Ngoepe, M., 2019. Skills and Competencies for Authenticating Digital Records
to Support Audit Process in Botswana Public Sector. African Journal of Library,
Archives & Information Science, 29(1).
PArrIS, H. and ESTrADA, L.M., 2019. Digital Age Teaching for English Learners. The
Handbook of TESOL in K‐12, pp.149-162.
Rosemann, M., 2019. Structuring in the Digital Age. In The Art of Structuring (pp. 469-480).
Springer, Cham.
Urbach, N. and Ahlemann, F., 2019. IT Management in the Digital Age. Management for
Professionals.
Urbach, N. and Röglinger, M., 2019. Introduction to Digitalization Cases: How Organizations
Rethink Their Business for the Digital Age. In Digitalization Cases (pp. 1-12).
Springer, Cham.
Younis, J. and Gishen, F., 2019. Practical tips for teaching academic integrity in the digital
age. MedEdPublish, 8(2).
Zachar, V., 2020. Journalistic translation in translator training in a digital age. Fit-For-Market
Translator and Interpreter Training in a Digital Age, p.213.
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