The Relationship between Social Media and our Body Image

The photo was taken by The Lazy Artist from Pexels

Social Media has taken a big place in our modern society. Most of us interact with them daily and we often share pictures and videos of us, our friends and family and share our opinions about them. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Tiktok and Pinterest are the ones that help us share these. Everyone has shared at least one picture and seen the “likes” and the comments that followed. Usually, positivity comes out of them but sometimes negative one can also appear which can have affected the self-esteem of the author of the post and caused them to have doubts about their body image.

Our Body Image can be defined with four factors:

1. Perceptual (how you perceived your body)
2. Affective (how you feel about your body)
3. Cognitive (how you think about your body)
4. Behavioural (how you behave as a result of your body)

These four factors can have an impact physically and mentally on someone and they can play a role in how someone perceived himself/herself in the world. According to multiple pieces of research, social media have a high impact on adolescents and young adults because they try to mimics what they see on social media. Since filters and Photoshop have been invented and integrated into various apps, people alter their images and videos before posting them which can make us think that someone is thin and athletic but when we meet them, they are not what we saw on social media.

Celebrities and Influencers are using social media to promote their lifestyle and their brands which can put strand on people images because they want to look like them physically and they want to adopt their lifestyle. Anybody can post an altered photo or video to make them look like the best version of themselves which can cause envy from anyone who sees it since everybody is looking to be accepted by society’s standards of beauty. With the younger generation trying to ascertain to a certain perfection, this can lead to low self-esteem, depression, eating disorder, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, personality disorder and other physical or mental illness or disorder.

A lot of scientists in the last years have researched the subject and found out that people were influenced by what they saw on social media and they would have developed some of those problems by simply scrolling down their feeds and trying to reproduce what they saw. Social media kind of replaces the same phenomenon that was happening with magazines where people would try to look like the models displayed in them. I think we need to have a real reflection on how social media affects negatively our body images.

Here is a second opinion on the impact of social media on our body image:

But social media can also have a positive impact on body image because people are looking for inspiration to start for example a weight loss journey or start a new job and see how other people did it. I think there is some good in social media because I like following fitness gurus to see what exercise they are doing and how I could incorporate them into my routine. I also like following Influencers who are trying out new restaurants in my city or starting new food trends like avocado toast or celery juice. I think that if we can find a happy medium, social media could have a good effect on our society.

So, are you influenced by social media? Do you look at them to have ideas about your body image? Did you change something about yourself once you saw it on social media?

I am looking forward to reading your comments about the subject,

Catherine

The Social Media Influencer: Is this a real career?

Photo taken by Photobro from Pexels

Social Media Influencer is a new kind of job that appeared at the beginning of the 2010s. YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, etc.… made regular people suddenly become Social Media Influencers by simply posting content or promoting a product on their page. This new marketing strategy is used more and more by companies to attract potential buyers. Social Media is usually dedicated to a younger generation and so from a marketing strategy perspective, companies and businesses needed to start advertising on social media to attract those consumers and what better way to do so than by using people to promote their product. The way these marketing works is that they look at social media and see who is attracting the most views or who has more followers, they approach them after they become more establish and sponsor them with a variety of things which can vary for example from free sample of make-up to a free dinner and even sometimes a free trip. Those Social Media Influencers then share on their page photos, videos, clips, etc.… with the product of the company or business that sponsored them and this way it is a win-win situation for both parties. Social Media Influencers also receive money every time they post something on those social media platforms.

One of the most prolific areas that Influencers are used in are restaurants because everybody goes to restaurants and more often than not, people usually consult social medial before trying out a new place or a new type of food. For a restaurant, the use of Social Media Influencers is less costly than regular marketing strategy like fliers or add in journals. You can read my previous blog on why restaurants should use social media to promote their businesses to learn more on that subject.  Social Media Influencers play a big role in promoting their businesses because they take for example very good picture of their food, put it on their social media pages and encourage people to come and visit their restaurants. Since a lot of the new generation are following those Influencers on social media, they are encouraged by them to go try the new drink at that particular restaurant for example,

Photos taken by Roman from Pexels.

But is Social Media Influencer a career? According to various sources, it is easier for someone to become an Influencer than stay an Influencer because of the competition is very harsh. A lot of Influencers became a millionaire over the years because companies paid them a lot of money for each post they were creating which puts a lot of pressure for new people that want to become Influencer as well. Since those Influencers are relying on businesses and social media to pay them for the things they post online, there is the risk then one day social media will disappear or become irrelevant and all those Influencers will lose their job. Being an Influencer is a very stressful job. After all, they are always trying to be unique to attract more and more followers because they receive money from social media platforms for the numbers of followers they have and if their numbers drop, then so does their pay. So more often than not, Influencers will have to sell something they do not believe in to make sure that they receive a paycheck which can have a huge impact on how they present themselves on the Internet. In the digital world, each Influencer is battling with other Influencers to have control and attract more businesses to their social media pages. This can become a very stressful environment for young people that are trying to establish their mark on the world and probably why a lot of them have a very small career before returning to a more traditional career.

Here below is the point of view of a social media influencer on the fact that her job is not as sustainable as she thought:

So, what do you think about this video? In your opinion, is Social Media Influencer a real job? Can Influencers make a career out of it? What are the impacts on our society in the way we consume new products or new experiences?

Looking forward to reading your comments on these questions,

Catherine

INSTAGRAM, THE END OF PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY?

Photo by Victor Freitas on Pexels

Instagram first made its appearance in 2010 but became more popular in 2014. The main objective of this app is for people to be able to share pictures and a short video with others around the world. Those photos and videos for example can be altered to emphasize the colours and shape them. Today more than 1 billion people use this app and the number of subscribers keeps growing. The fact that most of us now have a phone with a camera integrated into them has facilitated every one of us to be able to become photographers. Now every time somebody sees something that he wants to capture, it is a possibility and they can now use filters to emphasize the beauty of the picture. The picture is then posted on social media for the world to see and comment on it.  

A great example of the usage for this app would be restaurants since most of us when we go to a restaurant will likely take a picture and post it on our page for others to be able to see how it looked and make up an opinion about it. This counts as free publicity for those owners who also can use this social media platform to advertise their restaurant. Since the pictures can be altered with the filters, they often look as good as if they had been taken by a professional photographer but with little cost.

But with that new app and the fact that it is easier now for anyone to take a picture, alter it and post it on this social media, this means that the work that was being done by professional photographers has been greatly diminished. With all the possible alterations available in the app, anybody can use them to enhance their picture at no cost which permits anybody to publish exquisite photography anywhere in the world. In the previous example, owners of restaurants do not have to hire any more professional photographers to take pictures of their food to put them on their menu or online publicities because they can do it themselves on Instagram and still reach a lot of people. 

Criticism over the use of this social media to distribute photography has been established in the last few years when the photography community realized that anybody could take similar photos and published them without even receiving a salary for it. Since anybody could take a picture with their phone and altered it, this meant that people would be less inclined to buy pictures made by professional ones since they were easily accessible on the platform at no cost. Another issue that Instagram has created for professional photographers is the fact that anybody now can become an Influencer by simply creating content on their page which results in diminishing the art behind the photography. Professional photographer plans every one of their pictures. Pictures are a form of art and when Influencers take pictures just to create content for their page, it kinds of breaks the art behind the photography because they become common and can easily be scroll down by anybody that is following the Influencer. Since Influencer attracts people to visit, for example, a beach because they saw it on Instagram, then the photography that was taken by a professional photographer might not be necessary for companies to buy because instead they can use the one published by the Influencer freely. In the long run, professional photographers will probably be less attractive for businesses and art lovers and their profession might disappear.

See the video below for another point of view on the current subject:  

So, what do you think about the comments made in the above videos? Do you agree with him or not? What would be a way to prevent this profession from disappearing? Is Instagram really to the best way to capture the wonders of the world? Is Instagram here to stay? What are your thoughts about this app?

I am waiting for your comments to see your view of the subject,

Catherine

Reference:

The Power of Instagram – How It’s Changing The Way We Create + Travel

Want to promote your restaurant – Use Social Media!

Photo taken by Vincent M.A. Janssen from Pexels

Social media are starting to be incorporated in all areas of our lives and business are starting to turn toward social media to advertise the activities. Those businesses, to attract more customers, are publishing photos, rebates, tutorials, recipes and even offering coupons on their Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Snapchat feeds. The traditional advertisement in the mail, in the newspaper and by telephone are starting to be outdated since more and more turn to social media to have the input of others or see pictures before going in a restaurant for example.

I am one of those! When looking for a new place to eat, I tend to go on social media to see what the restaurant looks like, what kind of food they are serving, what are the comments of previous customers and I tend to build an opinion of the restaurant before I even set foot in it or even decide whether or not I should eat there or not. With social media, people can have a look and see what kind of experience they are going to have once they visit it. They can also consult the menu, see how the plates are presented and see if it is appropriate for the kind of meal they want to have.

With more and more people turning to social media and with the millennial generation becoming their #1 consumers, restaurants need to adopt new marketing strategies to attract them to their restaurant. Here below is a YouTube video explaining the best marketing strategies that restaurants can adopt to have a bigger presence on social media:

This is only one of the few examples of marketing strategies I found while researching for this blog. Here below are other people’s opinions and tips on how should restaurants interact with social media to have as much reached as possible across their communities:

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-use-social-media-for-your-restaurant-2888560

https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/on-the-line/examples-of-awesome-restaurant-social-media-marketing

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/bars-restaurants-social-media-guide/

https://blog.wishpond.com/post/57638303180/social-media-marketing-for-restaurants-21-tips

https://www.qsrautomations.com/blog/restaurant-management/social-media-for-restaurants/

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-restaurants-can-use-social-media-effectively

With the constant involving technology and the way people consume products and experiences, social media presence seems to way to go for restaurants if they want to attract people to their restaurant and even promote a new lifestyle. What do you think? Should restaurants pay more attention to how they are perceived on social media? Should restaurants use social media to promote their businesses? Is there another alternative to social media that a restaurant could use to promote their food and drinks?

I am looking forward to reading your comments on the subject,

Catherine