Impression management on social media

The notion of social media, has added very important values and differencies to 21. centuries communication styles. First of all, thanks to the emerging of the Internet to our lives, the borders has been dissappered. Then, the communication styles of indivuduals have been reshaped on social networking sites. Inviduals use not only telephone, fax, typewriter or letter, but also use mostly, online environments for communicating with others. Also, individuals want to create impressions on others when intrecting with them. Therefore, the perception style of others is crucial for individuals. Individuals who create and maintain a succesfull impression management, they can have more achievement in their business and private life. Thanks to the becoming of widespread usage of the social networking sites, individuals has begun to create their impressions on their personal pages with using various strategies. Individuals who use these social networking sites, can improve their relations and the communication styles by sharing photos, videos and messages. They manage their impressions for controlling the perception of other by using these sharings. Social media has begun to affect individuals' socialization. Before social media individuals used to create and maintain their impressions only in daily life relations. After the development of social media, people can create an account that they can present theirselves. Therefore, the socialization process can happen or maintain on social media platform or social networking sites. Individual can present his/her identity, images, roles and impressions, by contacting other people who are belong to his/her social network. When the individuals create and sustain a succesfull impression management process, they can be more successfull in their private and business life, comparing other people who do not use social networking sites. With the expanded usage of social networking sites, individuals has begun to generate their own impressions by using various strategies. The first section of this work is about the literature review of impression management and the relational notions. The second section of this work is about the historical process of social media, its specifications, and the current situation. The third and last section of this work is focused on an analysis of the impression management strategies that individuals use on Facebook. The analysis method of this work is based on semiotics and discourse analysis. Keywords: Impression management, social media, semiotics, discourse analysis