How Hackers and Spam Ruined Social Media…

Over the last month or so I remember hearing how Facebook and Twitter were hacked in to and disrupted for a period of time. Does this concern anyone else? Is it like when an insurance company or medical outlet misplaced your personal information or loses a lap top that had your information on it? Hackers and spammers are killing social media by getting in the way and disrupting the process.

From Mike Schaffner of Forbes magazine, “The reason for this isn’t just the novelty of it all wearing off. It’s more that it’s become less pleasant due to the amount of spam that is permeating the social media space, coupled with the overbearing commercialization that is taking place. Layer on top of this the erosion of privacy and it doesn’t look good. Even my college-age daughter, a prime demographic for social media, complains about these same issues.

Many of the people that I get as followers on Twitter seem to offer nothing more than a continual stream of advertisements. It seems that a growing number of “Internet marketers” are taking over Twitter, trying to get business in teaching people how to grow their follower counts and sell advertising.

It’s not that business doesn’t have a place on Twitter; it is possible to project a corporate presence in social media without it simply being a way to advertise. A good example is Scott Monty who heads up social media for Ford. Monty is very effective in getting Ford’s message out by talking with customers rather than just talking to customers.”

I completely agree with Mike. Once companies realized they could turn a profit from social media, they were all ears. Unfortunately a lot of spam has gotten in the way of things.

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