The only currency that a social media user really has is their privacy.
Privacy is what a social media user wants and craves.
It also what is taken away from them at every update or decision to use an application.
This is because the information about a person is very valuable to businesses.
In truth, profit generating activities in a business can be directly linked to the demographics and science within a business.
Many people believe that advertising is something akin to black magic, but it really is not.
What it really boils down to is the ability of a business to discern who their real customers are and then target those people at the exclusion of everyone else.
This is why advertising through the social networks is very popular.
There is no other medium where a business can find a high concentration of people who have the characteristics of their best customers anywhere else.
This means that every word, update, and application install on a social media profile brings a person that much closer to buying something on the social networks.
As a person moves along and gives up more and more of their privacy the advertisements become more and more custom fitted to the user.
Therefore, at some point, the ads will become too attractive to the user and they will buy something.
This is what the business owner is hoping for and what the social media network sells to the business owner or the advertising manager.
Therefore, every little bit of information that is released by the user is one step closer to having ads that the user cannot resist.
Fortunately, there are many business owners who are not sophisticated enough to use this system, but as time goes on other business owners will learn how to use the social networking systems to their maximum effect.
Therefore, a user must be careful what information they release on the social networks.
There was a case of a person who asked the social network to release all the information they had about him.
The social network complied and sent the files they had about the user to the user.
This document was over one thousand pages long.
There is no doubt that the social network also has a data sheet about the reader that is just as long.
Every post reveals a little bit about the person behind the post, therefore, it behooves the user to be careful what they post and who they post that message to on the social networking system.
When a user makes the decision to use an application, they need to read the fine print detailing what information that application will ask for and what they will do with that information.
The truth is that the application will reveal most of this information, but most of the users never bother to read the information carefully.
A smart idea may be to develop another profile to use with that application because the user will be able to manage that other profile better than their own.
The new profile should only be used to use certain applications and not for updates, this keeps the profile clean and some of the profile private when it should be private.
Managing a social networking profile is very important for anyone using the social networks.
The social networks are not in the business of giving total privacy to a user because they would not be able to make money if they did.
The social networking business would have to change their monetization model to a membership site, and this would cause them to lose many members.
Therefore, they cannot change the model.
Therefore, a person who wants privacy on their social networking systems should endeavor to provide that privacy for themselves.
This is the only way that a person can have as much privacy or as little privacy as they want.