Lesson video

Hi, welcome to the RSHE PSHE internet safety and harms, reality versus the online world.

My name's Mr. Duffy, and today we're going to look at social media and reality.

So we're going to look at how we present ourselves online, look into who influences us on social media, and how to identify content that influences us.

So let's take a look at some key words then.

So social media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

So that can include Instagram and Twitter.

And an influencer is a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.

So in this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, 'cause you're going to write some things down, you're going to do some tasks during the lesson, and in which case you will need a pen or a pencil.

So let's have a look at what we mean by social media.

So according to Statista in 2020, there are 45 million active social media accounts in the UK, which is 66% of the population using social media.

That's massive.

Such a big number of people using social media.

How we present ourselves then on social media is extremely important because you never know who will view your platforms. So how you present yourself online is so important.

As I said, you just do not know who's going to be viewing your information and what you put on there.

So what we're going to do is we'll watch a video and then we'll come back.

See you in a minute.

So creating and sharing a social media identity then.

So let's take a look at the video and let's have a look at what happened.

So complete the table using the information from the video.

What I want you to do is in the left-hand column, write down positives for the person being interviewed.

So what were they? There were lots of positives in there.

Can you just write some down for me? And then equally, in the other column, how did her online profile let her down? What were the issues, okay? So if you need to watch the video again and then do the task, just pause it and I'll see you in a second.

So tell me more about the leadership retreat.

When was it? What outcomes were you looking for? What challenges did you encounter? I just got back from the retreat.

It was very successful and there were positive team outcomes.

I'm confident that I could replicate the same for your company as this is not the first retreat for which I've been leader.

And the challenge? It was difficult to get buy in at first, but I have Myers-Briggs training, so I understand people and how they best work together in teams and as individuals.

Great, thank you so much.

Do you have any questions for me? Just one.

What is the timeframe for the final decision? You will hear from us within 10 days.

We are vetting final candidates.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to come in.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I think she would be perfect actually.

Her skills and interests align with our goals and she will bring exceptional experience that we currently don't have on the team.

She also strikes me as a very proactive and positive worker.

I have to check her references, but first I want to do a quick virtual scan.

Let's make sure we aren't hiring someone who is wanted for some crime.

Let me Google her.

She probably has a LinkedIn profile.

Let's see if she has been endorsed for any special skills.

Okay, no LinkedIn, well, that's a little strange, but she does have a Twitter account.

Let's see what she says and who she follows.

Okay.

It looks like she's pretty confident that she's getting this position.

Well, looks like our search continues.

Had this person had been more vigilant about her online persona, she might in fact have had a new position.

Perhaps in the future she will be more savvy about the connections between her personal life and her public social persona.

And she will reflect on how she wishes to appear to others, most especially prospective employers.

Where did she go wrong? What different decisions might she had made to accomplish her goal of getting this job? In this module, we will explore issues and considerations related to online persona and personal privacy, both key components to one's social identity.

Fantastic.

Hopefully you've got some really good ideas there.

So when we look at that video, she came across really, really well.

First and foremost, she was dressed extremely smartly.

So she certainly looked the part, she certainly dress for the occasion, which is always the first thing that you should do.

You know, you should always give that first impression, which is how you look, your smartness, and make sure it fits the brand or the company that you work in for.

And she came across really well in the interview.

She gave all the answers, she definitely showed her experience, which is really important.

She definitely, definitely met the brief.

And everything seemed to go really, really well to the point where the person who was interviewing her had obviously rang the big bosses and said, "Yeah, I'm really happy with this person.

I really like her.

I think she'd be perfect for the company.

Let's hire her.

But I'm just going to go and do these further checks." And that's where the issues began.

So how should you present yourself online? So I mentioned just then about personal and professional.

We need to keep them separate.

Personal for friends and family, we can keep people updated on what we've been up to, particularly in the current climate.

Really now, you know, we can't see people as much as we'd like to, so it's really important that we keep our personal life separate 'cause, you know, some things on there, they're not for the professional world.

And obviously we're keeping things interesting, we're put things on there with our children.

It doesn't need to be in our professional life.

However, having that professional Twitter, the professional Instagram, or the LinkedIn is really important because it shows prospective employers that you are relevant, that you're up to date with the industry that you working within, and you're enthusiastic and passionate about your sector.

Certainly within teaching, we have Twitter and things like that because we can share best practise, we can share all these new teaching ways of working, which is really, really important and develops us as individuals, but shows that we are very relevant to the current climate.

And we do that all the time in business.

Engineers will do this a lot as well.

Lots of different companies in different sectors will use social media, but we need to keep them separate.

So what is social media and why do we have it? Pause the video and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic.

So let's look at social media then and let's see what it is.

So social media is interactive, computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.

And we can see in the image there we've got Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok now is becoming extremely popular.

So we can use social media in a variety of different ways, both personal and professional.

So why do we have social media? What's the point in it? Social media comes down to a simple, basic human desire, the need to connect with other humans.

And we are connected nowadays 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We can talk to somebody from the other side of the world in an instant, okay.

And we can share our own personal interests.

It may be a family member, a friend, or it might be someone who we don't know so well, but shares the same interests as us.

And we want to be part, we want that feeling of being part of a group.

For some reason, humans, we want to be part of a group and we can do that through social media.

It came about at a time after the world, in many ways, have become one.

We think about now our world, we're not disconnected anymore, are we? You know, we can speak to any person, at any time, in any part of the world.

We've suddenly become a very close knit community, very close knit world.

We know about things that are happening on the other side of the planet.

When, I don't know, 15 years ago or maybe even 10 years ago, we wouldn't have had a clue and now we're up to date.

Technology and the internet have made it so we can connect with anyone, anywhere, at anytime.

Like I said, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on any content, subject that we can think of.

So what I want you to do is pause the video now, and I want you to write down how old do you have to be to have a social media account? You may not even realise that there are age restrictions on social media.

Have a think and write down what you think and I'll see you in a second.

So it's really interesting.

Certainly when I was doing research for this lesson, I wasn't awfully aware that there were even minimum ages, certainly for YouTube, that was a big surprise.

And I must admit WhatsApp was a little bit of a surprise to me.

Obviously with being a teacher and obviously having to advise students and things like that and deal with certain things, I was a little bit aware of the other ones, but certainly WhatsApp and YouTube was a big surprise.

So for Facebook, you need to be at least 13-years-old, which, for some of you watching this, you may not even be 13, but you may have a social media account.

So it's really important to understand that the minimum age requirement is 13.

Instagram 13, Snapchat 13, Twitter 13.

TikTok, which is fairly new to me, is also 13-years-old.

WhatsApp is 16, and that's obviously that messenger service.

And I didn't realise WhatsApp was 16.

Yeah, that's new to me, but I wasn't aware of that.

YouTube is 18-years-old, which again, I wasn't aware that YouTube was 18 to have an account.

However, with parental permission, you can be 13.

And I suppose to some extent, the other ones are the same, you know, it would be under no illusions that some of you may be younger than 13 with these social media accounts.

However, what I would say at this point is please make sure your parents are aware that you are on social media.

It's really important that you do that.

You need to make your parents aware so that they can, you know, any issues that arise, they're there to help you.

All right? So it's really important, just make them aware please.

But that's the minimum ages.

So what I want you to do now is write down some groups of people that you are influenced by.

So this is now just through social media.

Who are you influenced by on social media? Write some ideas down and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic, well done.

So these are the ones I got.

I only got four because I think these are the main ones really.

Family we're influenced by them.

Friends, we're definitely influence by friends, especially on social media, see what our mates were up to, see what our friends are doing, and, you know, we want to do that.

And, you know, we may want to change the way in which we think or do things.

And as a result, we are influenced by our friends.

Celebrities without question.

That's changing slightly now, and we'll go into that a little bit more detail.

Celebrities will influence us but certainly in terms of buying power and selling products.

It used to be celebrities, they were the big one.

Not so much anymore.

We're now starting to look at these, what we call, an influencer.

And influencers are the ones who are changing the way in which we buy, and influence us, and have an impact on our buying and use of services.

So those are the four main ones.

So let's watch a video now and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic, well done.

So, welcome back.

I've got a task for you now based on the video that we've just watched.

So what I'd like you to do is copy the mind map outline and try and add two examples of a definition.

What different size of influences are that? Types of content? And finally types of position, okay? So complete that, try and give two examples, and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic, welcome back.

So let's look at the definition then.

So an influencer basically, in its simplistic term, is someone who influences our buying, the reasons why we buy, okay? So it's really important.

They're influencing us on how we buy certain products and they do this by creating trends.

They may also do this by obviously showing an advert.

So they show there Brian May playing his electric guitar.

Every time it goes on Twitter, it's actually an advert for that guitar.

Okay, so the may show products off, and they may show, you know, they're using this type of makeup and they're influencing you to buy those products.

So there's four different sizes of influencers.

We have the micro influencer, we've got the nano influencer, up to these mega influencers, and it's all based on how many people are following them.

What was really interesting was certainly the nano influencer, a thousand people or less.

And I think that's really interesting because most of us will have maybe, I don't know, three, 400 friends possibly on Facebook.

May be having 500 followers on Twitter, potentially.

So it's really interesting to see that actually we could be an influencer.

Certainly within my profession, within teaching, there will be people, teachers, who will show a best practise and show certain pedagogical ideas in terms of teaching and learning and they will influence us and how we do our jobs.

So it's interesting that you will have friends who potentially could be an influencer, but is really unique into quite a small sector.

So that links on then to the types of content.

Some of it could just be basic adverts for, like we said, for a guitar, for an electric guitar, or it could be a sports brand like Adidas or Nike potentially sponsor Cristiano Ronaldo.

And obviously those big brands, like Adidas and Nike, will sponsor Cristiano Ronaldo in order to sell their products.

So it maybe that they want him to wear the latest football boots and people will want to go and buy those boots.

In fact, some footballers, for example David Beckham, were bought by Real Madrid because he sold shirts in the far east and they made millions just by having Beckham 23 on the back of those Real Madrid shirts.

So some of the other types of content nowadays, is things that are of interest, but also might be newsworthy as well.

So the content is quite specialist, to maybe inform people.

And then when we look at the types of position of people, it used to be the big celebrities.

But as I said in the video, actually some of these celebrities are so big that it's really hard for brands now to get hold of them and pay $1 million a post is just mind blowing.

Whereas some of these other companies, these brands, tend to go for the smaller ones.

Ones maybe in a niche market and just want to focus on those specific types of people, but also, actually, they can get their brands out a little bit more.

And they're hitting quite a lot of people.

It's specialist, it's designed for those people as well, but also the people who are influencing actually have a bigger influence than the celebrities because they've built up a real big relationship, an important relationship, with the people who follow them.

So actually the big celebrities aren't really the people they're going for, partly because now, it's flooded the market with these influencers who actually have a real influence over those people because they've made their profile based on that.

So can you identify any social media or online influencers? Who do you think? Fantastic, well done.

So, some of these, I have no idea who they are.

The big one there for me is Cristiano Ronaldo and actually, I didn't appreciate how much of an influencer he is, obviously he's massive within the world of football.

But brands love him.

I suppose he's the top professional today, he's absolutely dedicated to his sport.

He doesn't have any negative press and is a world beater.

And actually, looking at those reasons, brands love him.

Absolutely love him.

But we've got Daily Dose, Huda Kattan, a lot of these influencers as well, what we will class as the influencer who's given advice and information.

Some of them are doing this on health and fitness or nutrition.

But then we've obviously got Kylie Jenner, obviously big one from the Kardashians.

Selena Gomez, quite a big one there as well.

So how can we identify then content that is trying to influence us? Obviously we see content all the time on social media and on the internet, but how do we know which content is trying to influences us or maybe buying or purchasing or selecting a service or whether it's information, whether it's like fake news, or whether it's information that's credible that we can use maybe within our work.

How can we identify content that is trying to influence us? What could we do? Pause the video and I'll see you in a second.

So how does social media use content to influences us then? I think that's the first place where we need to look at.

Brands will create trends through social media influencers.

So whether it's the TikTok dancers that we see, they're creating a trend because people will follow those trends and then it will build and build and build where people will then make money out of that trend.

Whether that's to advertising, so it might be on your TikTok videos, advertisements are coming up, popping up.

Again, linked to you.

But also it might be a fashion trend.

This is the latest trend for 2021.

You go and buy that product.

And that's how they do it.

They create trends and they use their influencers, they use these people to promote and build these trends.

User generated content, watching someone use a product.

So it's be like a YouTube clip where they might be using like Brian May was there using the guitar.

They will use the product and explain how brilliant that product is.

Engagement, so brand loyalty through social media.

One of the biggest things that brands try and do is to build this brand loyalty and they will do this through using influencers because influencers already have built up a really strong reputation and built up a strong relationship with their followers.

Actually, the brands will then feed into that.

And that's why we were saying the the celebrities, they will probably use these products already, people are definitely following them, but there's maybe not that closeness, there's not that strong relationship with that celebrity.

Whereas with the influencer, actually we feel like we have an avid interest with them and that actually we know each other and that's what they try and use, and that's how they try and get these products and brands into the minds of people.

Peer recommendations.

So again, we feel that we have that peer-to-peer recommendation.

"Oh, have you tried this? It's really good.

You could try it." Promotions, discounts, and deals on social media.

So you'll always say brands, supermarkets, clothing outlets, whoever, put in special online only discounts.

A lot of travel companies have just started to do it now as well, whether it's ferries or flights or holidays themselves, 10% online discount, to try and get you to use that way of working.

And that way purchasing and influences us how we do our business, how we buy things.

So how do we then know if we are being influenced? The obvious answer is actually it's quite difficult, it's really hard.

Some things we'll read that we think, how will we.

You know, it could be extremely subtle, how are they influencing us here? We might not even realise it.

You know, it might be a certain chocolate bar keeps coming up on your feed.

You're being influenced.

You will end up going and buying that chocolate bar.

You just won't realise it cause you see it all the time.

It's something that you're certainly not processing, you just, you see it and you'd go on about your day.

But it's there.

When you go into that shop and you'll end up purchasing it.

That's in its simplistic form really.

However, there are some things to look out for.

Influencers must state to the viewer that they are being paid to recommend a product or service.

It's something they must actually do.

And adverts will show up based on your cookies and search or view history.

So the adverts will be directed to you because you may have searched that product.

So you may have searched for some new trainers and then suddenly in your social media feed you're finding that people are now advertising for trainers.

Well it's obvious because the price and we know it's an advert.

So what can I do then? So the first thing is to become a critical viewer.

You need to differentiate between an advert and advice.

The way that we do this is we can look at the author, so we can see, well, who wrote it? Do we recognise the author? Look at the date, that's really important.

One of the things that you can certainly tell whether its an advert or advice, particularly whether it's useful advice, is we need to look at the date because sometimes we might think, "Oh, wow, look at this information, it's really interesting." It could be five years old.

So look at the date.

Look at the author, look at the date.

The other thing is if it's trying to get you to buy something than we know for well it's an advert.

If it's trying to just give us some friendly advice, then take it on board.

But again, if we want to know and make sure the advice is credible, just check the date and the author, it's really simple to do.

If it's from a credible source, then it's usually going to be quite good advice.

If it's not, then maybe ignore it.

Delete or remove your cookies.

That can really help.

Obviously websites and brands will go through your cookies and they will be able to direct in and give you adverts based on your viewing history.

That can be really useful because you might be looking for certain stuff and things pop up and you think, "Ah, that's actually quite helpful." The other thing is with your cookies, is that you don't have to put your passwords in all the time when you're wanting to go into social media or your emails.

However, if you are going to delete your cookies, they'll remove them.

Can you please, please speak to an adult? You must speak to an adult first before you do that, because they may not want them removed.

So please speak to your parents or an adult carer before you do that please.

Do not click on anything that you don't recognise.

Just don't click on it.

One of the ways that people get viruses and malware into your computer is through these popups, these internet popups advertising X, Y, and Z.

You'll get it on your X-Box.

You'll get it on your PlayStation.

You'll get it on your phone or your tablet or your laptop.

Just don't click on them.

If you do not recognise them, just ignore them.

All right? Really simple, just ignore them.

So that brings us to the end.

Thank you so much for watching today and for taking part in the lesson.

I really, really hope you've learned something today and that you enjoyed it.

If you would like to please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter tagging at OakNational and hashtag LearnwithOak.

I've been Mr. Duffy, I really hope you've enjoyed it and I'll see you soon.

Goodbye.