Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Spike Lee retweet threatens an elderly couple’s safety

As the controversy surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin continues, more problems are popping up around it, such as an elderly couple feeling unsafe in their own home. Twitter user Marcus D. Higgins took to the social network last week to make known the supposed address of the man that shot Martin, George W. Zimmerman. He tweeted the address to a large amount of users that had tweeted about the case, such as Spike Lee. Lee retweeted the address to his 240,000 followers.

But it turned out that the address was not the address of the Zimmerman that shot Martin. It was actually the home of David McClain and his wife, Elaine. Elaine was previously married to a man with the last name of Zimmerman and George W. is her son. George has not lived at that address in seven years. David and Elaine had to flee to a hotel because of hate mail and people showing up at their house. Lee has since apologized and agreed to compensate them for the disruption.

NBA introduces line of Twitter handle t-shirts

Last week, the NBA began selling official t-shirts that feature the Twitter handles of some of the big names in the league, such as Jeremy Lin, Dwyane Wade, and Kevin Durant. The front of the shirts display a hashtag along with the logo of the player’s team. The back of the shirts are jersey-style, only instead of the player’s name above their number, it displays the player’s Twitter handle.

The NBA has always been one of the more social-savvy pro-sports leagues, and this idea seems to be a first in pro sports. Websites have sold t-shirts with similar ideas, and other sports leagues have featured Twitter handles on jerseys, this seems to be the first time a professional sports league has sold merchandise featuring Twitter handles. Would you wear one?

High school student expelled for tweeting profanity

Mere months before graduation, Austin Carroll was expelled from his Indiana high school for a tweet containing the “f-bomb.” The tweet was sent from his own home and from his personal account.

The problem is that the school told Carroll’s mother, Pam Smith, that Carroll was accessing Twitter from a school-issued laptop, although Carroll says that he was on his personal computer. Carroll is now attending an alternative high school and will be able to receive a diploma, but reports that he is disappointed that he won’t be able to partake in popular senior-year activities such as prom.

This only one of the several current examples of schools disciplining students for content posted on social networks. All examples are surrounded by controversy and debate because right now, the U.S. Supreme Court has not made clear how schools can punish students in cases involving social media.

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Ochocinco invites local followers to dinner

New England Patriot Chad Ochocinco is known for reaching out to his Twitter followers: in January he brought a loyal follower from Florida to Foxborough, Massachusetts for a playoff game between the Patriots and the Denver Broncos, paying for travel and hotel stay. He may have gone even further on March 12:

That’s right, he treated 200 people to dinner. TMZ reports that the feast of BBQ ribs, fried chicken, mac & cheese, and red velvet cupcakes put Ochocinco back $7,914, but that doesn’t even include tip. Later that night, he tweeted that he had 200 new friends, and that he even gave them all his phone number. On a social network where celebrities and athletes frequently brag about themselves and get into fights with other Twitter users, it’s great to see that Ochocinco is using it to truly connect with the people that support him.

Federal Reserve launches Twitter account

The Federal Reserve’s interest in social media is not new. But it only recently launched a Twitter account, @federalreserve, as a way to reach out to the general public. After almost a week, the account has tweeted 14 times and over 16,000 followers.

The account will primarily be used to communicate news about the Federal Reserve. The account will post the Fed’s weekly balance statements as well as its monthly report on credit and liquidity programs. In addition, followers of the account will see press releases, testimonials, speeches, and Congressional reports.

The Federal Reserve also hopes to use the account to educate, through tweeting educational material and videos. For example, the second tweet the account posted was a link to a video of Chairman Ben Bernake explaining the structure of the Federal Reserve.

Chirp Clock uses tweets to tell time

Have you ever thought about how many tweets talk about what time it was when the tweet was sent? Chirp Clock has, and discovered it’s frequently enough to build a clock that runs on tweets.

It uses the Twitter API to search for tweets containing whatever time the user’s computer is set at. It will display one tweet at a time, and will show a new tweet every 2 seconds. It also works on mobile devices and displays the handle and avatar of the author of the displayed tweet.

While it may not be the best tool when you need to know what time it is ASAP, it shows how much vast the span of Twitter really is. The creator told Mashable that since launching the site, “there hasn’t been a minute for which the site could not find a tweet.”

It’s also interesting to look at the context of tweets. For example, when I check the site around 11:30 a.m., a good portion of the tweets displayed had something to do with lunch or being hungry. This could become another way to track people’s moods through Twitter.

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Bret Easton Ellis tweets plans for Psycho sequel

On Friday night Bret Easton Ellis, the author of the 1991 novel American Psycho suggested via Twitter that he was planning to write another book with the same main character, Patrick Bateman. Ellis tweeted that he was thinking about where the book’s antihero would be now.

He then spent five hours fleshing out the details and figuring out Bateman’s storyline, welcoming suggestions from his followers:

Tweets posted over the course of the brainstorming session included that the character’s favorite movie would be The Help, he would be obsessed with Rihanna, etc.

He tweeted that by the end of the night he had taken over fourteen pages of notes on where Bateman is now and is going to continue working on this idea, which was met with excitement by his followers and fans.

Posterous team joins the Flock

On Monday, March 12, it was announced that the 4 year-old blogging platform Posterous has been acquired by Twitter. Both Posterous and Twitter published blog posts announcing the news. The official Twitter blog states “Posterous engineers, product managers and others will join our teams working on several key initiatives that will make Twitter even better.” Posterous Spaces (blogs) will stay up and running as usual. Both posts also ensure that if they do decide to make any changes to Posterous Spaces, users will be given ample notice.

Twitter now available in right-to-left languages

On March 6, Twitter became available in four new languages: Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu, meaning that Twitter is now available in languages that read right-t0-left instead of just languages that read left-to-right, such as English. With these new additions, Twitter is now available in 28 different languages.

The four languages were added to the Twitter Translation Center on January 25. The Translation Center uses crowdsourcing to translate the Twitter product (not individual tweets), including Twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone and iPad, Twitter for Android, Twitter Help, and Twitter Business Center.

The Twitter blog post explains that these languages present unique technical challenges, “particularly with Tweets containing both right-to-left and left-to-right content.” To make it work, the engineering team built a new set of special tools.

Tweet Your Way to Savings with American Express

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

American Express is no stranger to social saving initiatives: In July 2011, they introduced the “Link, Like, Love” Facebook app that tailored deals to places that users “Liked” or checked into via Facebook Places. Through their partnership with Foursquare, they have also launched several savings programs such as loyalty rewards and rewards for shopping at small businesses. Now, they have brought the savings over to Twitter with their new Sync with Twitter program.

The program allows you to sync your Twitter account to an American Express card by going to sync.americanexpress.com/twitter (Note: the program does not work with protected Twitter accounts). Once a user’s accounts are synced, they can send tweets with special offer hashtags and the corresponding offer will be automatically loaded onto the synced card. When the user then goes to buy a featured item at a participating retailer, the savings are automatically delivered via a statement credit within a few days. No coupons, no promo codes; you don’t even need to let the retailer know you are part of the program: it’s all automatic.

The current special offer hashtags can be found on AmEx’s Favorite Tweets page. Current participants include Best Buy, Sports Authority, Cheesecake Factory, H&M, McDonald’s, and Whole Foods. These are some of the current offers so far:

  • Best Buy: Tweet #AmexBestBuy to get $10 back one time on your next single purchase of $100 or more with your synced card
  • Dell: Tweet #AmexDell to get $100 back one time on your next online purchase of $599 or more with your synced card
  • Virgin America: Tweet #AmexVirginAmer for 10% back one time on main cabin tickets with your synced card

As you can see, tweeting can actually save you a huge amount of money on certain items.  American Express has been trying to appeal to younger customers and promote spending, and I believe it is working. When I first started noticing Foursquare deals for AmEx cardholders, I wished I could redeem them, but not enough to open a new credit card.

But with each new social initiative, I want an American Express card a little bit more. For those obsessed with social media, it can seem worthwhile. At this point, most of the places I check-in to on Foursquare have special offers from American Express. It now feels like I have to spend more money because I have a different credit card, and that’s why these initiatives will work.

American Express is paving the way for integrating social media into spending. We have to spend money from time to time, and it’s not fun. But social media is fun, and if there is a way people could save money while having fun, I’m all for it.

What do you think of this new program? Sound off in the comments!

Revolution of Social Media: Kony 2012

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

Two days ago, Invisible Children released a video highlighting the abuse committed by Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lords’ Resistance Army (LRA) in central Africa, becoming one of the most viral video campaigns the world has ever seen.

Invisible Children, a movement dedicated to ending conflict in Uganda,  created a call to action,  aiming to raise awareness by making Joseph Kony famous. Because of Invisible Children’s work to raise awareness of his injustice over the past 10 years,  Barack Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. These acts committed the United States to help bring down Kony and his rebel army. However, in order to continue the search and fight against Kony, Invisible Children must raise support for his arrest amongst people throughout the world.

The documentary,  produced by filmmaker Jason Russel, has over 7 million views, is trending on Twitter, and is inviting thousands to join the movement on Facebook. When I watched the video, in a span of 30 minutes, 4,000 comments were made. The Invisible Children organization has strategically garnered the strength of social media to carry their campaign to the top of the news. Russel emphasizes the strength of social media by noting that 200 years ago, the population of the world was equal to the amount of people on Facebook today. This online platform connects the entire world in one community, and in Kony’s case, unites people for the common good of humankind.

Another tactic Invisible Children is using to gain support against Kony is by involving key celebrities that hold social influence. George Clooney appears in the documentary saying Kony deserves the same amount of spotlight in the media that celebrities have.  A twitter campaign targeting celebrities and influential figures launched last night using the hashtag #STOPKONY.

The video does an amazing job of eliciting an emotional response from it’s viewers. It tells the story of Jacob, a Ugandan boy who describes the death of his brother and fears of being abducted by Kony’s  Army. Russel also uses his toddler son to evoke emotion, by telling him about Kony and the harm he’s done to Jacob’s people. Scary visuals are shown of horrible mutilation done to victims, children hiding out in fear and the children captured by Kony who are forced to kill their families. The documentary leaves viewers feeling empowered and uplifted, because with their support, the fight against Kony can finally end.

The movement encourages supports to to buy action kit/bracelets, make a donation, and sign the pledge against Kony. Also, they are promoting “Cover the Night” in cities around the world on April 20 in a campaign to plaster cities with posters, stickers and banners supporting the arrest of Kony.

The viral phenomenon that Kony 2012 has sparked reveals the true power of social media. Without these platforms, there is no way the world could efficiently raise awareness to support this necessary cause. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are helping shape human history, in greater ways than we could ever imagine.

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

Couple’s wedding saved by generosity on Twitter

Six weeks before their wedding, Lauren Lane and Daniel Welch found out that the events company organizing it was folding, and the couple would be losing £4,500 (over $7,000). Naturally, Lane turned to Twitter for help, tweeting “Help needed with aspects of our wedding after venue goes bust with 6 weeks 2 go & with our £4.5k”.

The responses started coming in and her tweet was retweeted by many, including celebrities Davina McCall and Dannii Minogue. Lane’s bridesmaids also began tweeting local wedding services companies asking for any help. People from the Twitterverse helped however they could.

The Guardian explained: “Twitter users with something to offer leapt in to help. Some contributed jewelry and clothes, one came up with a three-tiered chocolate cake. A magician, make-up artist, a photographer and a wedding planner all offered free or cut-price services or goods.”

The couple was married on February 25 and Lane described it as their “dream wedding”. They estimated that they received £10,000 (around $16,000) worth of goods and services, and only had to contribute £5,000 of their own funds.

Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose announce engagement

Last Thursday, rapper Wiz Khalifa proposed to his girlfriend, musician Amber Rose and tweeted her answer. At 1:49 p.m, he tweeted an Instagram picture along with three words: She Said Yes.

The picture was of the engagement ring on Amber’s hand. Around ten minutes later, Amber Rose tweeted the same Instagram picture with the message, “He has made me the Happiest Woman in the World!!!!”

As fans of both artists responded to the tweets and congratulated them, “Wiz and Amber” made the list of top trending topics.

Lady Gaga reaches 20 million followers

When Lady Gaga became the first Twitter user to reach 15 million followers in November, it was estimated that she would be the first to reach 20 million followers in March or April 2012. That estimate proved to be pretty accurate, as Gaga reached the milestone on March 3.

Her closest competition is Justin Bieber with 18 million followers, but statistics from TwitterCounter.com shows that Gaga’s daily follower growth rate is consistently higher than Bieber’s.

Gaga has referred to herself as the “Queen of Twitter” ever since her follower counts surpassed Britney Spears’ in August, making her the most followed person on Twitter.

Social Networks Satisfy User Needs

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Over the past ten years, our perception of social media has transformed from a seemingly useless fad to an integrated way of life. As over a billion people worldwide use social media every day, we can recognize how it is becoming a vital channel in society. It is now second nature for people to search Twitter for the news, connect with an old friend on Facebook, or seek a job opportunity on LinkedIn. Not only do we desire the luxury of these tools, they have become a necessary aspect of our lives. As different needs develop, social media finds a way to fulfill them. It is easy to see how each successful social network strategically establishes a specific need for its users.

According to a blog post from All Twitter, social media may even play a role in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a psychological theory that addresses the stages of growth in humans. Facebook and Google+ help us maintain a sense of belonging through connections to friends and family. Twitter is good for our self-esteem, because it empowers us to reach out to others and self-promote, while keeping us informed. LinkedIn satisfies our need for safety, by providing security in employment.

With this realization in mind, we can see why some social networks are successful, while some are never adopted.

  • When Facebook launched in 2003, it was exclusive to large groups of people in college. It gained popularity through social proof and eventually people everywhere joined the network because they didn’t want to feel left out.
  •  A more recent addition to the digital world, Pinterest, saw the need for connectivity and sharing that social media users crave. Pinterest’s popularity sparked because it is integrated with Facebook. When a user joins they are automatically shown which of their Facebook friends are on Pinterest, revealing several accounts full of interesting and exciting pictures to “pin”. Once a user “pins” a picture, it can easily be shared through Facebook as well.  Pinterest also fulfills a need by sharing photos that inspire a call-to-action- whether it is a recipe or a home decorating idea.
  • Other examples include Foursquare’s ability to make location relevant online, Google+’s integration with the world’s largest search engine, Twitter’s ability to spark creativity with the #hashtag, and LinkedIn’s discovery of a professional way to interact online.

Additionally, the more these social networks integrate with brands, the more useful they are to businesses and customers. Brands can create fan pages on Facebook, have Twitter chats with their followers, pin their products on Pinterest, track their customers on Foursquare and increase their search engine optimization with Google +. Also, LinkedIn is known as the best social network to generate business leads online.

If a social network can satisfy an individual’s needs, it is essential for companies to take advantage of these platforms.  Have you capitalized on your business’ need to be socially available?

 

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Kelly Osbourne vs. Little Monsters

There are certain celebrity fan bases that you don’t want to mess with: Beliebers, Directioners, Little Monsters, etc. Kelly Osbourne has learned this the hard way since she accused Lady Gaga of being disrespectful on Fashion Police. Lady Gaga’s fans, aka Little Monsters, have been attacking her on Twitter ever since.

In an episode discussing the Grammy Awards, Osbourne said, “Being part of the music industry is walking the red carpet. You say hello to your fans and you give back to those reporters and those people who supported you. And when you go to an awards show and you don’t walk the red carpet, I find that disrespectful.”

Since the comment, Osbourne has received tremendous backlash from Lady Gaga’s fans. Little Monsters have been attacking her via Twitter, sending death threats, calling her fat and ugly, and saying they hope she kills herself or gets raped.

Osbourne is very active on Twitter and has been responding to quite a few tweets about this and once referred to Little Monsters as “bullies”. She has set the record straight that she is a huge Gaga fan and knows that not all of the Little Monsters are bullies, especially as some are defending her to fellow Gaga fans.

Chris Brown vents, “dies”, wishes RiRi a happy birthday, and releases collaboration

Whaddaya know, Chris Brown got mad and took to Twitter to ventagain. After his Grammy performance got very mixed reviews on Twitter, he went there himself to address his critics, which included Miranda Lambert and Michelle Branch.

He lashed out at them in a series of tweets which have since been deleted, ending with one saying “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F*** OFF!”

In response to his tantrum, Twitter users decided to make him “die” on Twitter. #RIPChrisBrown and other similar hashtags were trending on Wednesday.

But then yesterday, Brown surprised us all by tweeting Rihanna (aka Robyn Fenty) to wish her a happy birthday. Anything having to do with his previous relationship with her is usually a very touchy subject for Brown and has even been the subject of past Twitter tantrums. But the two recently collaborated on remixes of Brown’s ‘Turn Up the Music’ and Rihanna’s ‘Birthday Cake’. They released the remixes on Twitter yesterday:

#Linsanity everywhere

If you haven’t heard of Linsanity or Jeremy Lin, you probably haven’t spent much time on the Web recently, because it’s getting hard to not hear about him. But just in case, Jeremy Lin is an Asian-American basketball player that plays for the New York Knicks and led them to quite a winning streak (which ended last night against the New Jersey Nets).

The hype surrounding Lin, especially on social media, is astonishing. People want to see and share everything about him. A picture of the couch he used to crash on went viral and his old YouTube videos (see “How to Get Into Harvard”) and Xanga posts from when he was in high school have resurfaced. Check out this “Linfographic” for more about #Linsanity on Twitter.

Do you think the Linsanity will continue now that his winning streak is over? Do you want it to?

Fashion Week Continues to Get Social

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

During September’s New York Fashion Week, we wrote about how social media has completely changed Fashion Week. What was once one of the most exclusive events in the industry has become accessible to the everyday person from any location. It’s Fashion Week in New York once again and this time, it coincides with Social Media Week all over the world and continues to adopt more and more social elements.

Once again, Fashion Week is partnering with YouTube to live stream over 30 runway shows on the official Fashion Week channel. And once again, Tumblr is sending a group of bloggers to cover the event. According to Mashable, Tumblr also has internal editors who will be curating posts to appear under the NYFW tag.

But companies are still finding new ways to bring Fashion Week to those outside of the tents. KCD, a fashion public relations and production company, has even launched a platform for online-only runway shows called DigitalFashionShows.com. Unfortunately for most people, access is by invite-only. But for the buyers, editors, and other fashion professionals that can’t make it to some or all of the shows, it no longer means being at a disadvantage. The platform will offer pre-taped shows (in embeddable format) along with packages of extra material such as high-resolution pictures, interviews with designers, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Diane von Furstenberg is teaming up with the mobile video iPhone app Viddy to post 15- to 30-second video clips. The DVF Facebook page will have a “DVF NYFW” tab dedicated to displaying the video clips but will also be posting some on Twitter and their Facebook wall so that mobile users have access to them as well. The clips will feature backstage interviews, model castings, hair and makeup runthroughs, and more.

Lastly, more fashion shows are incorporating a Tweetwalks, as Burberry did last September. A “Tweetwalk” consists of posting photos of each look on Twitter just before the model steps out onto the runway, so essentially the line’s Twitter audience can see the collection a little sooner than the actual runway audience. During Tommy Hilfiger’s “Twitter Model Walk” for its men’s collection, followers can even win a pair of shoes from the line by retweeting an image with the hashtag #TommysRunwayShoes or filling out a form on Facebook.

With New York Fashion Week occurring twice a year and social media making strides every day, I can’t wait to see what new innovations there will be next fall!

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

The Grammys set social TV records

According to CBS, Sunday’s Grammy Awards saw the second largest audience in the show’s history. But viewers weren’t just watching the show, they were discussing it on social media also. According to a Mashable article, the Grammys got 13 million social mentions, becoming the top entertainment event in social TV. For comparison, the  runner-up (the 2011 VMA’s) got only 3.1 million social comments. Some of the most social moments were Chris Brown’s performance, when Adele performed as well as when she won Album of the Year, Jennifer Hudson’s tribute to Whitney Houston, and Paul McCartney closing the show.

Twitter partners with satellite providers

Twitter recently announced two new partnerships, with Iridium and Thuraya, the world’s largest satellite providers, to provide even greater access to Twitter SMS. This service will come in handy at times when phone lines and the Internet are inaccessible, such as war zones and during natural disasters. Twitter is making moves to insure that the service can be accessed in as many parts of the world as possible. But since not all carriers support Twitter SMS, they also have set up “long codes”, which people can use to send tweets.

Is Oprah desperate for ratings?

While many people were tuning into The Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Oprah was tweeting to make sure viewers didn’t forget about her network, OWN.

One tweet in particular caught the attention of many, including the audience measurement company Nielsen. “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if you have a Nielsen box,” she tweeted to over 9 million followers around 9 p.m. The backlash was immediate, with people questioning whether her account was hacked or if she was really “that desperate”. Nielsen tries hard to ensure that viewers in their samples are not pressured to change their viewing habits and are “looking into the incident”. Oprah apologized and, at Nielsen’s request, removed the tweet but is still responding to followers calling her out about it.

Twitter jerseys finally spread to North America

Sports teams around the world have begun promoting their Twitter presences on the field by replacing the names on players’ jerseys with their Twitter handles. But this weekend, the Philadelphia Wings (@PhillyWings) became the first reported sports team in North America to do so. The indoor lacrosse team debuted the jerseys in their game against the Buffalo Bandits on Sunday, which they won. The jerseys were auctioned off after the game, raising over $13,000 for the American Cancer Society. Team spokesman Zack Loyd told The Star that when the players were told about the idea preseason, more than half of them were already active on Twitter. He also said “We were just looking for a way to gain more regional and national exposure.” Well, mission accomplished!