SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE A TOOL OF DARKNESS OR LIGHT — choose wisely…

Fiona Scott
5 min readSep 23, 2022
When we put our words, videos and thoughts into the world there are consequences — so consider what consequences you are prepared to accept

JOURNALISTS like me know the power of the written word, the visual image and the video clip. We’ve always known it and we know that hidden in those tools lies a power untapped and sometimes it’s unimaginable.

With the growth of social media over the last 20 years, that power has grown and grown and its impact cannot be underestimated. What you say and do in this public space WILL have an impact and it WILL have consequences for you and others.

Therefore you have to consider what kind of impact you want to have and what kind of consequence you are prepared to accept. This is still an evolving space, the law around it is still evolving yet that hidden power is growing stronger by the day.

Use it wisely and with good intention.

It doesn’t matter who you are, famous or not, celebrity or not — this space has power for all.

Often in business we talk about having a positive mindset, taking positive action and having a greater impact. These mantras have been around since business began. Just as PR has been around too.

With social media the opportunities within it are immense. You can have greater impact, you can build a small tribe or a large tribe, a large following and you can become successful in your area of expertise and, if it’s important to you and you put in the graft, wealthy in ways that were not considered before social media was a tool or a ‘thing’.

It’s a vital PR tool and I work with it all of the time for myself and for my family of clients. However I’m always mindful of its power and will school clients around certain messages and thoughts. I often refer to this as ‘reading the room’.

Social media has the same impact as talking to someone face to face yet the people you are talking to can be hidden, can be invisible and you won’t know them, you won’t know their stuff, their likes or dislikes and you have no idea who you are impacting for good — or ill. That’s the power that is at play here. We all must choose wisely.

However if you choose darkness, vitriol, negativity all of the time — if you make that the centre of your activity then you will have a negative impact and there will be consequences — for you…

Fiona Scott

Fiona has been a UK journalist for more than 30 years as well as being a freelance tv producer director. She’s also had her own media consultancy since 2008.