As it is, there are pros and cons to social media.
The Pros:
- Ability to communicate faster and easier
- Ability to share photos, videos, links, etc.
- Ability to express yourself
- Ability to connect with those who have similar interests
- It’s fun and interactive
The Cons:
- Dangers of cyber-bullying
- Spread of false information
- Less face-to-face communication
- Lack of privacy
I believe that the pros of social media use can outweigh the cons if people use social media correctly. Specifically, if people influence other users in positive ways, then social media can be beneficial. But how do you know if you are influential or not? Well, you can find out using a website called Klout.
It’s a free service – you simply sign in through your Facebook or Twitter account – and then allow Klout to gain access to your various social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc).
Once you do that, you can view your Klout score, which is a number between 1 and 100. The higher your score, the better. How is your Klout score measured?
Above is the description of the Klout Score (and as you can see, mine is 41!). Once you sign into Klout, you can read more about it.
Klout also measures other scores such as your true reach (the number of people you influence, both within your immediate network and across their extended networks), your amplification (how likely your audience is to respond and how close you are to your entire network), and your network impact (the influence of your network. In other words, how influential are the people you interact with as a whole).
I recommend that everyone find out their Klout score and work on increasing it!
Little Fish in a Big Pond 
Michael Birdman Stork
June 3, 2012
Speaking on the pros and cons of social media, we as Americans have used every technological innovation and turned it into something it was never meant to be. Radio, television and internet were meant to spread information faster and all it has done is spread bad music, reality shows and celebrity gossip faster than we can make it up. I’d like to see the ‘Klout’ score of some major media organizations.