Red Deer Reality Rant #16 - not-so-social media

Hello and thanks for checking out this edition of Red Deer Reality Rant. Today I would like to speak (rant) about Social Media and to put it bluntly, some of the crap myself and other Red Deerians have to endure because of these platforms. Most people do have some use for social media generally. Some local businesses do not have a website so patrons have to look at Facebook to find out about events and other info about these businesses. While websites are expensive to maintain, social media has become a novel way to get some free advertising and marketing, which does make a kind of sense.

Brutal Reality Digest is on 3 platforms, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook in case you haven’t noticed, as am I myself. The worst of these is Facebook which tends to be a bit of a crap show. Some of this does depend on who your friends and relatives are by I am particularly annoyed by the targeted sponsored ads that apparently aren’t any good at finding relevance to anything I am interested in. I’m not sure what is going on there, but I imagine most of the stuff that is bombarding me is solely based on gender.

I would appreciate if social media was able to target me more with local content, and content not based on irrelevant information like my age, gender or ethnicity. These are not things that define me as a person. The other thing that bugs me about social media is that posts are not in chronological order, I would like to see them in order of most recently posted to lastly. I believe that there’s an ulterior motive behind how content is filtered, but so far I only have conjecture.

Instagram makes the most sense to me because I am a visual person, and the following I have as well as the content I follow is relevant and interesting usually. But those ads and suggested posts are way off the mark. Come on, Insta! Do better. The industry I am in requires social media skills, as do a lot of industries these days, but many a time I have wished that it would all just go away.

It is highly unlikely that it ever will, social media is ever growing and ever evolving, so since it is here to stay I am doing my best to keep up with the program. Brutal Reality Digest promotes variety content, and I know some of my views are unpopular but that is exactly why this is a Rant and not news and entertainment information.

All I can say about social media in general and to the social media world is: do better and be better. The youngest generations are growing up with it, and it is making an impact on their lives that needs to be positive if we want a bright future for them. More useful, positive and relevant content needs to be on social media and influencers have the power to help with this. Really, we all can help with this, post content while keeping in mind how it affects others, and what benefit it has to the platform as well as your own account. As the character Little Nicky would say, “Release the good!”

###