Steemit Engagement Challenge Season 8 (Week 1) || "The Power of Social Media"

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Such a nice theme to start the engagement challenge.The power of social media is mostly overemphasized as the masses have seen and are part of the great benefits, compared to the disadvantages social media brings.

Steemit as a whole is a social media platform where we learn from each other, connect with people from different countries around the globe and also earn cryptocurrency.
If we're to analyze how steemit has changed the lives of many users here, we'll get a 90%, showing the power of steemit as a social media. Not only steemit.

Generally, social media has become an integral part of our lives, transforming how we access information, promoting our businesses and connecting with people round the globe. My experience on various social medias on which steemit is one of them would be highlighted and detailed to some extent.

I was just 12 year old when I knew what the most populous social media,Facebook was like. Although using a button phone which was most at times challenging due to slow Internet connection, I was able to connect with my classmates back then and friends online since I couldn't place calls sometimes.

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_{my phone when I was 12}

Most at times, we chatted at length, long enough that my mom would yelled at me, telling me to be with my books and drop the phone. My experience using social media back then isn't a good one as it were just chats I was exposed to. I couldn't access pictures, news, information, businesses, latest trends and motivational/funny videos.

Now is the reverse. With this android phone, I've gotten good experiences using social medias of which I'll break them down other than just generalizing.

• Facebook: My experience using Facebook is one of the best experience I've gotten using my phone. I could chat my friends with or without data, I could check latest trends, check videos, join informative groups and also follow up news. This particular social media became an integral part of life that a day won't go by without me stopping by. In fact, I called it my home. Barely anyone won't say they don't have an account on Facebook.

• WhatsApp: Through WhatsApp, I've been able to join conferences, chat with my voice instead of typing, using voice call and also promoting or marketing with my status.

• Twitter and Instagram: I've been able to join conferences virtually instead of physically, go through latest trends as it evolves from there and also become knowledgeable in various aspects.

• Steemit: I've been able to balance myself academically and financially.

These and many experiences are mine, using these social medias.

In my opinion, I think there's no age requirement for joining social media depending on the environment. Nowadays, students receive information and online classes via social media. I think once you are aware of the social media you're into and you're matured enough to curtail what you view, information you hear and videos displayed on those social medias, you're good to go.

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Some social media like WhatsApp and Instagram have an age requirement of 13 years and above. In as much as social media can be helpful to students, it can also be hazardous. To this course, parents who allow their children join social media platforms at ages of 12 and above should ensure close supervision and monitor them well.

To those who are no longer responsible for managing their social media accounts, it's advisable you secure it using a *strong password and two-factor authentication, as any body capable of hacking into your account can do so and start spreading malicious information using your account name. Or better still, delete the account to prevent certain happenings.

Managing a social media account is essential although it can be sometimes overwhelming. Some steemians due to inability of managing their account have left the account untouched for months, even years. Same with other social media platform like Facebook.

Most people abandon their steemit account/pages maybe due to mismanagement which led to people unfollowing you and some not engaging in your posts. There's how you create a post now and people don't engage but you have friends. Here are steps that can help you manage your account.

• Develop a strategy: Developing a strategy will help you and it is in fact, the first step. Your strategies should include how and what you need to do to manage your account especially if it's a business account or TikTok account. Let me use TikTok as an example. Developing a strategy on when and what to post will help you.

• After developing a strategy, creating quality contents that's interesting and posting regularly would also help you manage your TikTok account. It's not when you post today, before you post again, a month ago.

• Engaging in people's post and staying up-to-date with trends will help you grow and manage your account properly.

With social media power, the future is and will be very transparent for people to do things with ease. Take a look at steemit. Many are profiting from it, many have promoted their businesses through Facebook and WhatsApp, many have been able to reach out to their loved ones in other countries from time to time without needing to visit them physical. You can even see your loved one via WhatsApp.

Advantages	Disadvantages of social media
Financial improvement as a result of most social media is one of the advantage	Last year, two of my Facebook accounts have been hacked and the hacker used in in defrauding my friends. When I create, it would be hacked. Now
Advertising my business and products have been made easy through Facebook marketing and pages	Being overly focused on it, without giving priority to other things sometimes is a disadvantage that can be curtailed.

In my country, WhatsApp is the most used nationwide. Here's a trend of these social medias.

Conclusively, social media has undoubtedly changed our lives for the better, especially during the pandemic of which is the theme of a community's engagement challenge post.

I invite @chukwu10, @patjewell and @ngoenyi