Facebook Can Leave You Face Down

Dictionary.com defines advertising as "the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc..." I am not going to crituque or vent about a particular advertisement or campaign in this post, instead I will rant about the blatant and devastating use of Facebook by today's "up and coming" business stars. Now, this is, like any other post, written out of my experiances and opinions so there is no need for anyone to defend themselves or get their undies in a bunch if you feel that you do not fall into this category.

So, "the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product..." Hmm, isn't that Facebook in a nutshell? You are your own product! And Facebook is your 24/7 commercial that you can use to advertise yourself to everyone that your heart desires. Sure this is a great tool and is a site that has many benefits. I am an active user of Facebook and am not arguing that Facebook is bad in any way, assuming that you use it for its intended purpose. As a 21 year old and a senior in college, I am seeing that Facebook is not just a tool to communicate with friends or to post ridiculous pictures of yourself so everyone can see how drunk or silly you were over the weekend. It can be a very effective networking tool that can help you find a job or a connection that will lead to a great career or future upon graduation. There have been many surveys and studies done about this and in my research, anywhere from 38-70 percent of today's employers will check an applicant's Facebook or other active social media site before making a hiring decision. That means that the person that is debating whether to hire you or not can see your drunken pictures and post, and any other offensive material that may be hidden on your site.

I continuously see friends' pages that have content that puts represents them in a very negative way. In some cases, even being their close friend, I would not even hire them based on some of their information on their social media sites. It is something that may come with maturity and age, which happens at different stages of everyone's life, but it is important to know what you are uploading, how you are "advertising" yourself, and more importantly, who can see your content. I read a story a while back about a girl (her identity was concealed) updating a Facebook status that talked bad about her boss and said some nasty things. Turned out that her boss was her "friend" on Facebook and could see the post and commented on the status telling her not to "bother coming in tomorrow" and fired her via Facebook.We need to learn from this girl and be more aware of how we are presenting ourselves to the public because you never really know who is looking.