Here’s an interesting study to keep in mind when we talk about social media, privacy, and ethics in a few weeks. It turns out that sharing anything at all on social media might almost be the same as sharing everything. What does that mean for marketers? What does that mean for their customers?
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Today’s social media updates and analysis
Apparently the latest cool social network to belong to is This. It’s a small, invite-only network, where the catch is that each user can only share one link per day, emphasizing quality over quantity (like this class!). Of course, the New York Times is On It, so it’s possible This. is passé already, we’ll see.
The Atlantic also has an interesting explanation and analysis of subtweets and what they call “super tweets.” It’s worth checking out to see how it’s done and what it might mean.
SnapNews
In case you didn’t see this.. SnapChat gets in some add time
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/27/snapchat-discover-launch/
Intuit’s Use of Linked In to Apologize
Intuit has had a bit of a crisis at the beginning of Tax Season due to alignment of desktop and online offerings- causing some customers to purchase a product they use every year to find it does not have all of the features they were used to.
Our CEO, Brad Smith, posted on his LinkedIn blog regarding the company’s response. Would LOVE feedback on efficacy, as well as the choice to use LinkedIn.
When to Post and not to Post
You asked about the best times to post on social media. The short answer is generally weekday afternoons. But there are nuances depending on where you’re posting. Here’s a handy article and infographic courtesy of Fast Company to help:
Facebook and the Truth
Facebook has been taking steps recently to move more toward being a one-stop shop for news about your friends and the world at large. In order to do so, they’ve had to confront the fact that their users may not be sharing the most accurate of information. One recent bit of news is that they are now allowing and encouraging Facebook users to report stories that they know to be false, like hoaxes and politically-motivated fabrications. Of course, the people sharing the stories and the people reporting them might have conflicting motives, so this will be interesting to follow as it becomes more common. Here’s Wired with more:
Stop the Lies: Facebook Will Soon Let You Flag Hoax News Stories
Of course, fake news stories that are meant to be funny (and obviously fake) are exempt. You may have noticed the following “satire” tags on certain stories, like those from the Onion:
(People not recognizing the Onion as satire has been an issue in the past, it turns out. Check out Literally Unbelievable for some hilarious, depressing examples.)
“Make Sure You Instagram It”
Today I noticed an email that landed in my yahoo account (one of my two low-priority email accounts I check only periodically) and noticed the White House had notified me of three things. 1. I had access before-the-fact content related to the State of the Union address. 2. I could participate in social media surrounding the State of the Union. 3. I could stream the president’s speech through whitehouse.gov, described as the “very best place to watch.”
So this evening I thought, “Why not?”
I streamed the broadcast of president’s speech at whitehouse.gov through my iPad and have included a few screen shots here. Opportunities to post and to read others’ posts were plentiful. And even though I didn’t tweet about the speech, I definitely knew the hashtag to use. #sotu
In part, I decided to watch the stream because of an upcoming business case study about President Obama’s use of social media in his campaigns. I wanted to have a bit more real-time experience to put the case study in context. And here’s something I found amusing: when the President announced astronaut Scott Kelly would spend a full year in space, Obama’s concluding remark to Mr. Kelly was “Make Sure You Instagram It.”
Perhaps the president was nudging governmental bodies to focus on social media to keep our youth involved in affairs of the government? I’m sure there are plenty of marketing professionals out there nudging some “older professionals” to do the same. But if you post it, will they necessarily follow? And if they follow, will they share? I guess that’s what we’re learning in this course. Also, in terms of persuading government and agencies to change the way they reach the masses (or more specifically, our youth), it seems the president was putting a few of Cialdini’s powers of influence to use: appeal to authority (the president is telling you), likability (the president is highlighting you), reciprocity (the president is highlighting you), commitment/consistency (just get a foot in the door with the first Instagram post). Okay, maybe he was just trying to be hip.
Effective or Ineffective Social Media “Marketing”?
This post is inspired by the effective vs. ineffective social media marketing example that we discussed in class last Saturday (Whopper). John Boehner recently posted his position and concerns about Obama’s new idea to provide 2 years of free community college education through Taylor Swift Gifs. Politics aside, I think this post is an interesting observation on how older generations managing campaigns/marketing strategies are trying to figure out how to effectively market/communicate to millennials.
The Newsweek article (here) explains that this is the “GOP’s latest bid to connect with Web-savvy millennials by dipping into the viral morass.” Indeed the post has gone viral, but probably not for the reasons that Boehner intended..or was it? Was the main intention of this article to go viral or to really communicate and attract millennial interest?
Boehner’s post is available here.
Social Media Marketing Infographic showing its popularity (click on jpeg to zoom)
Seeing new things on social media
As I mentioned, one of the major themes of this course will be the shift toward visual media online. An example of how meaningful this shift is comes from Facebook and their move toward integrating video into the Newsfeed. Here’s a thoughtful analysis of what this means for content producers:
Another is the importance of Snapchat, and in particular their relatively new format, Snapchat Stories. A good description of what Stories are and what they do for users comes from the following article, which I learned about from this snarky tweet:
MGT 489 