Pros and cons of advertising on social media

Promotion strategies are used worldwide in almost every business. This means that even without noticing the strategies, we are more likely to buy/use the products the different businesses are promoting. In this essay, I will be explaining the pros and cons of advertising on social media. This will be done by using specific examples and well-known businesses that use these examples. In the first section, arguments supporting advertising will be expressed. This will be followed by some negative sides of advertising. To conclude, I will compare and contrast and make an overall summarization of the two.

Advertising is something humans see everyday, on billboards, in supermarkets, commercials and in this day and age, even on social medias such as Facebook and on Instagram. Advertising is defined as “ the act or practice of calling public attention to one’s product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards, etc.

Facebook, has been a social media platform since February 2004 and it uses advertisements based on your previous searches, what your friends are looking at amongst many other things. This can be helpful in many cases as it broadens many peoples horizons to what is on the internet and as to what can be found. Another pro of the advertisements on social medias is that, in this day and age, many teenagers do not read newspapers, and watch TV as much as Netflix, online newspapers and many other things have risen to the surface of the world. The advertisements, therefore, help many people in finding new interests, new ideas and most of all new perspectives on many things.

As these social medias become part of the societies everyday routines, there are many downsides as well as upsides to the advertisements. Many people have argued that they feel a certain level of violation towards their advertisements as they are not accurate, and sometimes too accurate. Facebook is currently being sued by federal courts for sharing data, which can also be seen in advertising, as the advertisements become more and more personal and the users of Facebook become more and more concerned about their search data being shared on other platforms. Another negative side to this matter, many users feel that it is not necessarily damaging, however they feel that they may have a stalker that traces their every search and every step online, which feels like a definite violation of privacy.

To conclude, I believe that there are many more negative sides/cons to the advertising as many people are put in positions where they feel a certain level of violation of property. Furthermore, I believe that the level of connection between websites may eventually endanger people in many more ways than once. However, I also do understand that in many ways it helps people and it seems like an easy way for social medias to make connections and to make easy money. All in all I see more negatives sides to advertisements than I do positive.