Challenges of Social Media

Social media is defined as media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques, such as Facebook, Twiter, Youtube, etc. With the recent ouster of President Mubarak of Egypt by protesters, people especially, Nigerians, have been extolling the power of social media. However, while the euphoria lasts, there have been challenges noticeable in the social media.
One basic drawback that has been noticed in the use of the social media space is the fact that it has resulted to low or no revenues for most of the participants. There are millions of bloggers worldwide for instance, but only a few of them can claim to have made serious revenues since their engagement in the enterprise. There is report that aside the users themselves, many businesses focus on generating hits, visits, or registered users before even figuring out how make money out of it. A good example is given with social networks, with some valued at millions, without much success stories. “Like the universe, stars and revenues are far and few in between, a majority of creators will not generate revenues”, noted an informed analyst.
Another widely reported challenge of the social media is the fact that investors are investing huge sums into cyberspace – often funding business models that in the main are directed at making profits, but for the growth in technology. It is reported that in more mature industries, that much influx of spending is often witnessed, but which is as a result of innovative technology and not the drive for revenue. “With so many companies being funded without actual revenue, the market is exposed to a several variants of the same feature” wrote an expert.
Commodity software is seen as always a concern, and this is because when it occurs, there are so many entrants that confuse the market, making its difficult to determine who to purchase from, and as a result competitors are likely to eat into each other’s margins.
There is also the problem of excessive noise because everyone that is able to create content and share details of personal life, is pouring into space, that the problem of excessive content, becomes an issue. For instance, according YouTube employers, it was revealed that every 60 seconds, 13 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube, and with millions of tweets generated every day. It thus becomes extremely difficult to be able to filter out what is important.
There is the problem of amateurism threatening professionalism, with incorrect content spreading. There is also the movement of the market without community consideration; corporate personal brand-jacking; and several other challenges that time would not permit their treatment in depth.