The question that everyone is asking about when it comes to social media is how we can monitor and track what is being discussed, posted, and presented online – but how we manage all of this data. There are numerous corporations that are designed just to monitor and track social media conversations online. Of course, public relations professionals are active in this new technology since they have to see whether or not their campaign and communication messages were receive and how they are presented in the online community.
However, public relations professionals are not the only ones that are interested in what is being said and presented on social media – even the government is not only engaged, but they are investing in these corporations. For example, it was just announced that one of the more well known social media tracking and monitoring corporations, Visible Technologies, is being invested by a firm that is associated with the CIA. Visible Technologies is defining this new investment is a “strategic partnership” and it appears what the CIA associated firm is interested in particular is what is considered to be “open source intelligence” – basically information that is presented online in the forms of tweets, status updates, blog posts, and others that is public in the online community.
With this latest new development, people are weighing in their opinions about this situation. Personally, I have discussed this numerous times with my students and in my guest lectures on the importance of being aware that what you post, say, and present online STAYS online and can be viewed by anyone at anytime.
Plus, social media in many ways has changed how individuals conduct business and how they present themselves – it has indeed changed the future of politics. Years from now, if someone wanted to run for a government office or specific position – people will not only do the traditional background checks on these individuals, but they will also look at the information and material that is presented on them online – from pictures to videos to blogs – all of this information is available to the individual with a single mouse click. So, to be proactive – be aware of the technology of social media and what you say and post online will be seen by the public and possibly tracked.
Hope you all are having a great day. 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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