Avoid Doing Things That Spoil Your Image on Social Media

In the digital age, people have got a very powerful platform in the form of social media for freedom of expression. It not only connects us with our friends, family members, and colleagues, but also provides an opportunity to express our views. With such a dynamic tool in our hands, every person wants to put his or her opinion on social media. It's quite natural for people to think that way, but they should not forget that social media is a double edged sword. On one hand, it’s very useful in terms of maintaining the connectivity among people, and keeping them updated with the latest news. At the same time, if it's used irresponsibly, we end up paying a huge price.

 

The social media profile of a person tells a lot about their personality and mindset. More often than not, it's because of their posts and tweets, we come to know about their views on important issues and form an opinion about them. These days most engagements and interactions among people take place on social media channels. They communicate through personal chats, and video calls. Whatever you post on social media, your friends, relatives, and colleagues also see that. If you are not careful about what you are posting, it can easily damage your reputation.

 

These days even prospective employers check social media profiles of candidates who apply for jobs. It is said that whatever you post online remains there forever. For example, you may have posted some silly comments about a female colleague or your immediate boss on Facebook a couple of years ago. And you have completely forgotten about that. Have you ever thought about what would happen if you apply for a new job, and the HR department of the company begins scanning your social media footprints of the last few years, and comes across that comment. Well! They may take offense to that one comment thinking you are not suitable for the job, and you, in spite of being adequately qualified for the job in every respect, gets rejected. You cannot imagine a worse scenario where you are made to pay dearly for a faux pas committed years ago.

 

However, a lot of posts on social media are done out of passion without even considering the usual consequences. They have their own good reasons to do that, but people who read these posts often form a wrong image. Therefore, one needs to be extra careful before posting anything on social media. There are plenty of posts on social media that is intended to create caste discrimination, gender discrimination or violence.

 

Social media is a unique platform, and whatever you post on a channel is seen by a lot of people. The written words carry a lot of importance in making public opinion. Therefore, we should be very selective in choosing our language for creating posts on social media. It's rightly said that something as routine as telling a joke needs intelligence. The real wisdom lies in choosing topics in a manner so that no one's feelings get hurt. Therefore, if you are sharing memes that promote caste or gender discrimination, you may be intellectually weak or violent. You cannot imagine how much damage can be caused by one irresponsible post.

 

Few years back, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, the famous singer from Hindi film industry posted a controversial tweet comparing the street dwellers to dogs. His tweet read like this "If a dog sleeps on the road, it may be killed." He was obviously showing his support to Salman Khan, the superstar of Bollywood who was facing charges of killing street dwellers by crushing them under the wheels of his car. This was the height of insensitivity from a celebrity. He was heavily trolled for this act on the Indian social media. In another incident from Muzaffarnagar, videos of inflammatory speeches of a political leader were uploaded on the social media, and was shared by thousands of users. This triggered a communal riot in which hundreds of innocent people lost their lives.

 

Nowadays, it has become a trend of sharing personal photographs on Facebook and Instagram. People don't give much thought before uploading such photographs on social media. But we need to understand this fact that everything cannot be shared on public platforms. Hence, you should avoid sharing your romantic and intimate photos with everyone. It is not necessary that every time you kiss or hug your wife or girlfriend, the whole world should know about it. These things are better kept private, or we may become a laughing stock for everyone. It would be better if all these things remain between the two of you. Your partner may not be comfortable with this. There may be some people around him with whom he is uncomfortable sharing his personal details. 

 

Don't resort to emoji every time when you can easily describe the feeling about a post in words. Do not reply with heart emoji every time or else they will think that you have a stock reply to every post. Don't comment on your partner's photos or posts right away. Take your time. Don't let your partner and his friends think that you keep an eye on their social media all the time. Moreover, there is no need to like and comment in a hurry as soon as they post something. Don't force anyone to like or comment on your post. Besides, don't expect your partner or friends to like or comment on your every post. Whatever you post on social media let them decide whether to react or not.

 

The way we manage our social media posts can make or break our image. Therefore, we need to restrain our urge to post anything. To make best use of social media, it's important to have clarity of thought and purpose. We must understand that social media has its own rules and regulations, and to get the best out of it, we have to set a code of conduct for ourselves.