Memes: What Are They And How Can They Help My Business?

June 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Normally when we watch TV we change the channel or fast-forward during commercials. But there is one day a year where we not only look forward but also enjoy commercials. And that day is the Super Bowl. This years Super Bowl featured a commercial by the Coco-Cola owned company Vitamin Water. This commercial sparked controversy amongst viewers because either you understood the commercial and found it hilarious, or you had no idea what was going on.

That’s because this commercial featured several references to Internet “memes.” If you are asking what is a “meme” then you’re one of the people who didn’t understand the commercial.

A “meme” is usually a video, image, story, trend or joke that spreads throughout the internet via social networking sites and for lack of a better term, take on a life of their own.

Basically, a meme starts with one thing that has a basic meaning, whether it’s a picture, animation, or viral video. Then it is copied, altered in some fashion, and then shared. This process repeats creating multiple versions of the same “meme.”

There are hundreds of “memes” on the Internet. But advertisers are finding that some “memes” are more popular than others. You may have heard of “rick-rolling,” “honey badger,” or perhaps “keyboard cat.” If you have not heard of any of these, then you need to spend more time on the Internet.

“Memes” are now becoming the new spokes person for brands. Instead of celebrities, companies are hiring famous “memes” to be in their commercials or Internet ads. Using “memes” appeals to the Internet generation because they recognize and acknowledge them.

Vitamin Water’s Super Bowl commercial featured 7 currently popular Internet “memes” in their commercial. It featured the star of the sexy sax man video, a person planking, a person doing the worm, cats with limes on their heads, a parody of a video of someone getting hit by an antelope, prisoners in orange jumpsuits dancing another spoof of a video and a cameo appearance of Nyan cat.

Anyone who has spent time on the Internet recognized all of these characters and could identify which viral video they came from. Showing that your company is up to date with current Internet trends is another way of establishing brand image. Internet users can associate your product as “cool” with the hopes that eventually they purchase your product.

But “memes” can work in the opposite way. Companies are now using “memes” about them to their own advantages. For example, on the Internet there was a popular “meme” of the main character of Futurama, Fry, called “Not Sure If…” It consists of a picture of Fry with squinty eyes giving the allusion that he is thinking. This image has many difference captions such as “Not sure if I am in a bad mood or everyone is just annoying” and “Not sure if I actually have free time or I’m just forgetting something.”

Capitalizing on the success of “memes” Comedy Central, which airs new episodes of Futurama, started to run commercial spots with this “meme.” This time the caption states “Not sure if happiness is due to life getting better or just new Futurama.”

“Memes” are gaining in popularity by the second. “Memes” can be a useful tool to in marketing because it shows that you understand the Internet, the Internet generation, and their humor. As previously mentioned, “memes” can be helpful in establishing a unique brand image which will hopefully increase your business.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Today’s Links

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How Well Do You Know Your Facebook Friends? Facebook App Review

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment



As someone who frequently uses social media for gaming, I was thrilled to be one of the first people to test the new game Face-Off. Face-Off, like the popular Words With Friends and Draw Something, is a new free application you can play with your Facebook friends.
Face-Off is the modern day version of the classic board game Guess Who? Watch the trailer here.

Like the board game, you pick from a pile of cards. These cards aren’t of random characters but of your actual Facebook friends. You have the option of choosing mutual friends with the person your playing against, you can choose from their friends, or you can even have the game chose the selection for you by selecting the random button.

Once you and your challenger pick your person, you ask yes or no questions back and forth to each other trying to narrow down which possible Facebook friend your competition picked. Asking the questions is extremely simple. You just type it in as if you were texting. Answering the questions is just as easy; you just type yes, no or I don’t know back.

Asking good questions is a little bit harder. In the board game, if you asked if it was a girl and the answer was yes, you eliminated 95% of the candidates. This is clearly not the case when it comes to your facbeook friends. This makes the game more fun and interesting, as you have to be creative to which questions to ask.

This really made the game fun for my friend and me. Simple questions like hair color and eye color were clearly not going to cut it. I found myself asking things like “Is he always drinking?” “Did I kiss him in high school?” “Is he a nerd?”

To eliminate people from the pool of choices you just tap their picture and they disappear. Once you think you have the correct answer you just hold their picture down to guess. I of course defeated my friend. And a big congratulations popped up on screen and gave me the option to post this on Twitter and Facebook.

One aspect that I really love about Face-Off is the fact that you can unlock achievements, which really gives the game an addictive quality because you just want to keep unlocking them! The one thing that I really didn’t like, but like most social media games are the ads that interrupt game play. But this can simply be fixed by purchasing the ad blocker for a dollar. Another cool feature is that they offer additional card packs for $1.

Overall, it was a really fun game. Taking a classic board game and giving it a super modern edgy twist. I found myself playing it for hours and laughing myself silly. I really recommend downloading it by clicking here. Or use the QR code. 

Filed Under: HomePage, Press, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Future of Social Music

January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Open up your Facebook page and do a search for “new Facebook.” Unsurprising to anyone who has been on the social networking site in the last five years, the results page is littered with links to groups dedicated to the hatred of whatever the most recent updates are. Groups like “I Hate the New Facebook Profile,” and “Can we find 500,000 who hates the new Facebook chat bar?” have memberships in the tens of thousands and at their height, even more.

In my opinion, none of this resistance matters. Aside from the most recent changes, no one can even remember what Facebook looked like before? If history has taught us anything when it comes to redesigns on the web, people will be resistant to the changes at first, then grow accustomed to them, then forget about life before those changes entirely.

While it’s still fresh in our minds, let’s review what the most recent “enhancements” were. The chat function was converted from a small tab in the bottom right hand corner to the entire right side of the screen resting beneath a second news feed updating in real time. Another change mad was the creation of twitter-like rss which one can subscribe to.

Now, as Facebook, as it is want to do, makes recommendations to its users.  Today my recommendations are a “person you may know” that I actually did go to high school with, and a popular rss feed belonging to Sean Parker, who is listed as a director at Spotify.

Hold on for a second…. Justin Timberlake?

More seriously, how did this happen? This guy is genius. Despite recent detractions, Spotify may be the first real competitor itunes has had. Personally, I find the program’s layout slightly more user friendly. Also if I actually paid for my music it would make a lot more economical sense to use Spotify.

Don’t just take my word for it, look at Parker. The man single handedly changed the way the world bought music a little more than ten years ago, and then helped reshape the way humans connect only a few years later. All signs point to this guy being a magnet for success on the internet so why should Spotify be any different.

Aside from the cost effectiveness of Spotify premium, my favorite part of the Swedish music service is the ability to sync your account with Facebook. Now I can make playlists for my friends and see what all the people I know are listening to. It’s just another way Parker has allowed us all to stay connected.

Filed Under: Social Media

Liberty VS Security: The Future of the Great Debate

September 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

London RiotsThe British government flirted with the idea of restricting the public’s access to the internet and social media in the wake of the riots that shook the nation. British officials met with representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Blackberry on Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit social media access in the interest of preventing crime and civil and unrest.

Theresa May, the government’s home minister said the purpose of the meetings were not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the government was exploring its options. “We’re going to look at whether or not it might be right to do this.” He assured the BBC “We are not going to become like Iran or China. We are not going to suddenly start cutting people off.”

revolution screenshot

Iran, criticized by the West for impeding internet access and limiting free speech, seemed to relish Britain’s identity crisis. The Tehranbased semi-unofficial Fars News Agency offered to “send a human rights delegation to Britain to study human rights violations in the country.”

“You do not want to be on a list with the countries that have cracked down on social media during the Arab Spring,” said Jo Glanville, the editor of Index on Censorship a magazine that promotes freedom of expression, stating that such actions could “undermine democracy.”

A Twitter spokeswoman said the company was "always interested in exploring how we can make Twitter even more helpful and relevant during times of critical need" after the meeting.

A Facebook spokesperson said: "We welcome the fact that this was a dialogue about working together to keep people safe rather than about imposing new restrictions on internet services." The company stressed the positive role Facebook played during the riots, such as keeping people in contact and organizing cleanup events. "There is no place for illegal activity on Facebook and we take firm action against those who breach our rules," said the spokesperson.

Social media has also played an instrumental role in the Arab spring. It is the only bastion of free speech an emerging class of intelligent young people has access to and its message of free speech and liberty is the only narrative the Middle East has seen that is more powerful than that of Jihad against the West. Western governments should be encouraging a universal acceptance of social media and free communication, not attempting to limit it.

British Riot Instigators Sentenced

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw were jailed for four years for Facebook incitement

Google accused the Chinese government of disrupting its Gmail service in March. The NY Times reported cell phone calls that mentioned the word protest more than once were immediately disconnected. Hosni Mubarak attempted to shut down the internet during the revolution. If liberal western governments threaten to block internet access or dole out harsh sentences to young men for creating Facebook events it will set a disturbing example for the emerging world about the government’s power over free speech.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Press Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Facebook Unveils the Future of Communication

July 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Thousands of viewers streamed into Facebook’s live presentation of their new products mid Wednesday. Mark Zuckerberg and his company unveiled a huge step forward in social media and, of course—a huge step forward in their competition with the Google+ project.

Facebook’s new products included an upgraded sidebar, group chat, and the very buzzed about feature: video chat in partnership with Skype. But most interestingly was their collaboration of major messaging systems: email, SMS, and IM. Zuckerberg described the idea for this new product, saying, “We don’t think a modern messaging system is email.” Though, he did later elaborate that he doesn’t expect the product to replace emailing, and he certainly doesn’t expect people to immediately shut down their email accounts and only use the new facebook.com email address.

But he did explain why emailing isn’t modern. He listed seven concepts people want out of their electronic communication as seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal, and short. Records show that 4 billion messages are sent across Facebook daily—most of which are one-on-one and private via the Messages feature or the instant messages of Facebook’s Chat, supporting Zuckerberg’s theory.

And on top different types of Facebook messaging systems, people have SMS and emailing, and different people prefer each method. So Facebook thought to centralize all of this into one, life-long stream of one-on-one conversation. If your friend prefers e-mail, and you prefer Chat, you can both communication using your medium of choice. You can view the history of your conversations as a timeline across all the mediums, not just in separate chunks of email, texts, etc. No matter where you are or what medium you use, you can pick up where you left off.

That covers the seamless messaging and conversation history idea, but course, that’s not all. The new product includes a 3 part social inbox that automatically filters messages based on who Facebook knows you care most about. Messages (including your emails, SMS and Facebook features) will be divided into “Messages”, “Other”, or “Junk”.  You can also manually move different people into folders and set privacy settings to limit messages to people you’re friends with.

Andrew Bosworth, Director of Engineering for Facebook, insisted he be called Boz, then continued to tell heartwarming stories and scenarios that all concluded with the need to use Facebooks new message features. Like his Grandma kept all of her letters from his Grandfather since they were early dating, he could view the first messages with his girlfriend from “it was nice meeting you” to their apartment buying and cat naming plans. Basically, Facebook is appealing to real life emotions and relationships.

So it looks like Facebook is still in the running against their soon-to-be major competition Google+. But if you’re wondering what’s so innovative about Google’s social media, here’s a quick summary:

Google+ includes three main features called Circles, Sparks, and Hangouts. The Circles feature allows you to easily share things with certain people, without complicated privacy settings. The Sparks Feature will keep you coming back to your Google+ homepage whenever you’re bored, because it automatically feeds you news and media according to your interests. And of course, Hangouts allows for group video chat.

Currently, Google+ is still a project, so accounts are only available to some people. Likewise, not all of Facebook’s new features are available to the whole network. They’ll continue to add more people, clean up the glitches, and eventually (soon!) expand to everyone. We’ll have to wait a little longer to see how the Google+ versus Facebook battle turns out. In the meantime, you can go group video chat with your Facebook friends.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Newsday: Inside Long Island business Feature

May 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Marketing specialist moves to law firm

10:25 AM By Ann Smukler

Matt WeitzmanPhoto credit: Valli, Kane & Vagnini

Matt Weitzman, of MJW Media, has been named Internet marketing specialist at the Garden City law firm of Valli, Kane & Vagnini. The Port Washington resident will be responsible for all website design and development as well as web promotion and social media integration for the practice.

Original article www.newsday.com

Filed Under: Press, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

A New Place for News

May 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Probably less than a week into the month, you unknowingly click the headline of your 20th article and an online popup halts you, insisting that “to keep reading, sign up today.” Alas, the time has come that The New York Times will no longer allow free riders of the Internet to mooch off their professional paper.

It’s been long theorized that online articles will stimulate the demise of paper journalism, so it’s no surprise that nytimes.com has implemented a fee for online subscriptions. But the truth is, even professional online news carriers aren’t necessarily society’s top informer anymore.

Instead, word of mouth—or word of fingertips, rather—has become the first source of top news: through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Status updates and tweets infiltrate news feeds (in which you can even select if you want to see the most popular posts or the most recent) and inform virtual friends and followers of top news—usually including the writer’s personal feelings on the subject. It almost becomes a competition to have the wittiest one-line comment on the matter, instead of the most intellectual, well-developed news report.

Take Osama Bin Laden’s death, for example. Late that Sunday evening, Facebook was flooded with the subject from patriotic exclamations to mobile-uploads from rallies to the simple “Bin Laden is dead.”

Site users worldwide were updated with this information simply by being “social.” Many people who would otherwise not be watching the news or reading an online paper at that time, but do frequently check their social networking sites or receive notifications to their phones, received and spread the news quite quickly. And the same holds true for even smaller scale news like sport event turnouts and television show finales.

Evidently, credible and prestigious news carriers aren’t necessarily needed for the simple informative part of news spreading. There’s no denying that people still follow up with real stories after encountering news off a social network, but there’s also no denying that many people don’t.

And aside from relying on peers, the New York Times itself can even be followed on Facebook and Twitter. So instead of connecting users to news reports, social networking sites may be nudging their way into being the news for many people.

 

 

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top Secret Photo from Osama Bin Laden

May 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This frame grab from video obtained exclusively by ABC News, on Monday, May 2, 2011, shows a TOP SECRET section of a room where it is believed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The U.S. Government just released this un-edited photo of the team who infiltrated the compound.

Top Secret Photo taken of SEAL team after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Social Media Creates Unprecedented Advertising Methods

April 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A new form of direct advertising has been created through social media.  Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have made it possible for advertisers to create content that meets the needs of their demographics, thus making it possible to effectively advertise over the web.

Advertisers are providing engaging and interactive content over social media sites to capture people’s attention and drive them into action.  Social media has made it possible for companies to create one-on-one conversations about products and services, formulate low-cost direct marketing strategies and enhance the perception of brand images by directly communicating with the public.

Consumers are constantly searching through social media for recommendations and reviews of products and services.  Companies can directly communicate with consumers via their social media pages, providing on-the-spot information and compelling messages that drive consumers to make the purchase.  Companies have used Twitter as a way to exchange knowledge with followers, and to create personal connections through @ replies and re-tweets.  Likewise, Facebook allows consumers the opportunity to post directly on the company’s website.  The company can reply to the consumer through their personal Facebook page, providing timely and honest information catered to the consumers needs.  Directly contacting consumers through social media sites creates personal relationships between companies and the public, allowing businesses to create messages and direct advertisements that are trusted and valued by consumers world-wide.

The web provides low cost options for direct advertising through the collaborative nature of social media.   Consumers seek to connect with people of the same interests.  Therefore, people in specific demographics create groups and forums on social media sites to share their thoughts and reviews of products and services.  These groups can be targeted by direct advertisers, cutting out the cost of focus groups, surveys and research.  Companies no longer have to go to extreme lengths to find their target consumers for direct advertising because consumers have already sorted themselves into interest groups all over social media.

Social media marketing can be used to increase exposure of brand images and to distribute messages and advertisements to the masses. Syndication sites provide opportunities for messages to be dispersed among large audiences, adopting the interactive and direct nature of the original advertising message. Syndicating advertising messages to various social media sites creates a pyramid effect- the message reaches the masses through a line of websites and postings.  However, it still provides the direct business-to-consumer message and continues making personal relationships.  By providing a consistent message and brand image through the various social media sites, businesses gain a reputation of being a company that cares about their consumers.

Social media has changed the nature of direct advertising; no longer do marketing messages need to have content.  Rather, the companies are the content that convinces audiences to buy products and services.  By generating trust within the community and creating personal relationships, companies gain value that is unprecedented by other marketing efforts.

Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Libyan Revolutionary Fire Ignited and Fueled by Social Media

April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Social media is the new tool in rallying for revolutions and igniting fire within Middle Eastern countries.  After the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions used social media platforms as effective means to stir up dissent, Libya quickly caught on to the trending strategy.  Utilizing social media as an aid for protests, Libya uses the hashtag #Feb17 to sprout conversation and provide information across the world.

Muammar Gaddafi instructed Libya to refrain from using social media sites after Facebook and Twitter were being used to call for reform.  Gaddafi understands the threat of social media's power and the influence it has in revolutions.  He has arrested activists using Facebook and Twitter as means to rustle up the community and encourage dissent of the regime.

Reporters across the globe have been left without facts and information because of Gaddafi's censorship, making the Libyan revolution appear to be a hazy subject including a lot of “he said, she said”.  But activists in Libya have created Twitter accounts to correct the false information that is circulating, despite Gaddafi's orders.  They've found social media as a way to provide their own news feeds and footage of the protests, and to stand against the government in support of the revolution.

A report by the Associated Press stated that the Libyan protests were not directed toward President Muammar Gaddafi.  The report quickly sprouted tweets in disagreement across the globe.  An angry Libyan protester named Libyan4Life tweeted “@SMH @HuffingtonPost @AP Protests in #Benghazi were solely towards #Gaddafi despite direct evidence, continue to report misinformation #Feb17?.  Another Libyan under the Twitter name Cyrenaican responded to the misled media conglomerate, “They say the revolution will not be televised. Fine. Can we at least get it reported correctly? @AssociatedPress #Benghazi #Feb17 #Libya”.

Despite the restrictions of the protest on television, Libyans used social media to publish the first video footage of the revolution.  The video was posted on YouTube by a Libyan protestor and shows images of people, young and old, fighting verbally and physically.

Through Facebook, Lybian journalist Mahmud Shammam rallied over 200 people to join in overcoming the false information and video restrictions by creating a satellite channel named Libya TV.  After calling for volunteers on his Facebook page, a team quickly assembled to create the station.  Their goal: to provide news and commentary while countering Libyan state propaganda.

“We need a heavy dosage of dialogue,” says Shammam, “we want Libyans to think about the future: the rule of law, civil society, a new constitution.  We want to promote a culture of forgiving.”

After hundreds of years of dissent and protest, it’s incredible that social media became the powerful outlet that finally made it possible for Middle Eastern countries to be heard across the world.

Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Relief for Japan Spearheaded by Social Media

March 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Once the power went out on March 11th at the Misawa Air Base in Japan, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Joy Josephson knew she would have come up with a creative way to update the world about the 9.0 earthquake. Using Facebook as her main source of communication from Japan to the outside world, she regularly posted updates and information for followers across the globe. Josephson was on to something. After the earthquake, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr were constantly updated with information on power outages, the nuclear crisis and volunteers looking for ways to lend a helping hand.

Social media has been a forerunner in Japan’s relief efforts, with communities and individuals uniting to provide support systems, funding and goods to the victims. Companies have caught on and are using social media as a way to fundraise for the earthquake relief. MotionPortrait, a Japanese based entertainment company, is donating all sales of its 12 iPhone apps between now and March 31 to the Tsunami relief. LivingSocial, a U.S. website that offers deals for subscribers, matched $1 million in donations for Japan while Zynga (a Facebook game company) raised an addition $1 million within their first day of launching relief efforts.

“The response for volunteers [at Misawa] has been enormous,” Josephson said. “People want to know what they can do. Folks want to donate clothes, nonperishables, but we also have the people who want to go clean up and help — anything they can do to help our Japanese friends.”

Facebook pages like Global Disaster Relief on Facebook and Dog Bless You are designed specifically to fundraise for the victims. Twitter created a blogpost that has a people finder, updates on power outages, public transportation facts, disaster site evaluations, evacuation details and other relevant information. “

"It’s been amazing; it’s really exploded,” Josephson states about social media’s effect on the tsunami relief efforts. “It’s becoming such an asset, not only to our community, but more so to the community outside of Misawa, to people just wanting to gain information.”

Social media has recently become a way for the community to become involved through many causes and disasters, and will continue to be our stream of information and hope for every victim.

Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Censoring your Social Media Page for Employment

March 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Companies are using social media websites as an information gateway in hiring and monitoring employee behavior.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter are influential in the hiring process for employers, and can also result in termination if they see information that is not “appropriate employee behavior.”  Employers monitor social networking sites for provocative or inappropriate photos, drinking and drug use, bad-mouthing coworkers and much more.  They even measure your communication and creativity skills from monitoring your social networking sites.

While we all use our social networking sites to display information regarding our private life for friends and family, employers fear that proprietary information will be revealed over the web and they will be negatively represented in the online world.  If you are looking for a job or currently employed, follow this list of Do’s and Don’ts to clean up your page and remain in the safety zone of social media.

  1. DO delete or hide anything on your profile that employers may view negatively.  Remove pictures of spring 
    break, vulgar comments or posts, rude language, and any commentary you may have posted about previous employers.  Remember there is no sense of “free speech” that is regulated in social media.  We’ve all heard the recent stories of New York teachers being fired for their online commentary of unruly classrooms and scandalous private lives.  It can happen to anyone, so keep your private thoughts and comments about your job to yourself.
  2. DON’T use social networking sites to vent about your job.  While you may need to talk about an overpowering boss or an arrogant coworker, never do it online.  While you may think your page is private, a coworker that you forgot you “friended” could take the page directly to your employer.  What you say online is permanent and is valid evidence that can be used against you in court and certainly by your employer or prospective employer.
  3. DO promote yourself socially and professionally online.  Update your pages to show your creativity and work ethic.  Write about accomplishments that you have made inside and outside of work.  Include your interests and passions and your goals.
  4. DON’T post anything that could be incompatible with your work persona.  For example, if you claim a disability or injury that alters your job responsibilities, refrain from posting pictures of you partaking in physical exercise.  If you are claiming worker’s compensation, investigators will often look at your social media sites to ensure that they are consistent with your claims.  An employer cannot discriminate against you because of disabilities, but you can be terminated if they unveil inconsistencies within your social media pages.
Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Viral Video- the Newest in Social Media Marketing

February 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Social media has become the most popular way to express yourself, and now America is using it to market brands and companies.  But, with all the hype on social media, it’s hard to be recognized out of the millions of companies creating fan pages and websites to generate followers.  Some companies, however, are finding a new way to market on social media: viral videos.  No, it’s not a virus that you’ll spend months trying to rid your computer of. Viral videos are videos that become popular through internet sharing.  So how could that help a company?

While the internet is good for promotions and awareness campaigns, we’re really interested in the funny videos of off-tune singers scantily clad, Charlie's biting habits or auto-tuned versions of news interviews.  And some companies have caught on to that.  Take Toyota, for example.  A company that had somewhat of a media crisis (to put it mildly) with an increasingly bad reputation on social media.  If you typed “Toyota” into a Youtube search 11 months ago, the first thing to pop up would be a v-log commentary on the malfunctioning brake issue.  Now we get a fun and engaging video, made by Toyota that has over 8 million views.

You may have seen the “Swagger Wagon” duo of a middle class mom and dad that are convincing audiences around the globe that the Toyota Sienne SE is a cool, hip, and somewhat “gangster ride”.  Their viral video took off, and viewers can now watch multiple videos of “the Sienna Family” and their excursions in the Swagger Wagon.

Other companies are taking it to the next level, and encouraging their fans to create the viral videos.  Doritos launched a “Viralocity” campaign where they invite Doritos fans across the globe to create their own 60 second videos featuring the new Doritos brand and promote it on their social media sites for prize money.  What better way to gain recognition then to have your fans do all the work?  Doritos put their social media tactics into the hands of America, and America ran with it.

Youtube is no longer for funny home videos or music productions by aspiring artists.  It’s now home to some of the biggest marketing campaigns, disguised by America’s talent of creating funny videos that are quotable, shareable and likeable.

Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Speak2tweet Gives Hope to Egyptian People

February 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

As the Egyptian Government is doing everything possible to quiet the desires and voices of Egyptian protesters, America has followed the unfolding wondering what we can do to help.  Just last week, Google invented a way to give the voices back to the Egyptian people and to allow them to connect with the rest of the world despite their government’s restrictions.  Using Twitter, the Egyptian people can post voice-tweets about the protests and their safety using their simple dial-in service.

Speak2tweet provides three international phone numbers that Egyptians may call to leave their voice notes.  By calling +16504194196, +390662207294, or +97316199855, anyone can leave a voice mail that will be linked directly to a tweet with the hashtag #egypt.   People may also listen to other voice-tweets by dialing those numbers.  No internet connection is needed, as the Egyptian Government blocked all internet connection within the country to prevent personal interactions between countries and citizens. Egyptian tweeter Ahmed Shalaby posted Jan 27th, “FYI | We don't have SMS, Fb, twitter, very very slow internet connection Till Now! & the worst is coming soon #jan25 #egypt”, and he was right.  The Egyptian Government quickly shut down landlines and mobile networks, cutting out almost all forms of communication.

In just one week, over three thousand tweets have been posted on Speak2tweet.  The site has acquired over ten thousand followers.  Google hopes that the site will help reunite the Egyptian people in their struggle for reform.  As stated in Google’s blog, “We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.”

Despite the Egyptian Government’s desire to tear down interactions between protesters and the rest of the world, Google has found a way to bring hope back to the people by connecting them once again.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share events and track participants with SocialMeety

December 8, 2010 By 1 Comment

A group of Brazilian developers and entrepreneurs is working on a new web service that will leverage social media’s power to help event organizers promote events and keep track of event participants.

“SocialMeety is a platform intended to help people promote events and track participants in the most used social networks,” Thiago Esteves says, one of the developers.

Unlike other tracking services SocialMeety will focus on events, which gives event planners an ability to measure social media’s influence on event attendance. Being able to measure it will help determine the future marketing strategy by focusing on social networks that provide highest marketing opportunities.

Each event will have a “Going?” button, for those who will be SocialMeety users. However, SocialMeety will crawl through Twitter to identify potential participants that did not use “Going?” button. Anyone tweeting about your event with Twitter hashtag #going will be marked as an event participant, Esteves says. They are looking into searching through other social networks, but they are not sure this will be available in the first release.

“Easy event sharing system that uses a tags concept, a ‘friends’ concept and an email notification feature to help people stay tuned about the events that most interest them,” are few other features you can expect to see on SocialMeety, says Esteves.

To help visitors remember where and when your event takes place SocialMeety will offer easy integration with popular calendars, including iCal, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and other.

Event planners should always be on a lookout for services that help them use social media more effectively, especially when they offer metrics about their participants, “how many social networks the participant uses, what is participant’s influence in Twitter and other networks.”

The first version of SocialMeety is scheduled to be available by February 2011. You can subscribe to an email alert to be notified when it happens on SocialMeety.com.

For original article, click here

Author: Viktor Nagornyy

Filed Under: Social Media, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Event Planner’s Toolbox: Event storytelling with Storify

December 8, 2010 By 3 Comments

I was excited to hear from blogger Viktor Nagornyy regarding my old post on Storify, because little did I know, Storify has a secret feature that Viktor shared with me. Here is Viktor's article on how to utilize Storify to share events and stories:

Event Planner’s Toolbox (EPT) focuses on software and services that enable you to reach your full potential as an event planner. They are handpicked, loved, and trusted. We try to keep them free, but free is not always the best option. However, in the age of freemium services became more and more reliable while costing users nothing but time to learn how to use it. Each article focuses on one area, covering it in depth to make sure it solves the problem. You’re more than welcome to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Every event has a story. Your attendees are the characters. The plot of the story is the main focus of your event. It needs to be told, yet many event planners fail to do so.

The story begins during the event and ends with post-event buzz. The story becomes a living testimony of the successful event. It becomes the marketing collateral used to attract new attendees to your next event. Also, it adds more interactivity to your event by allowing your attendees to talk about your event through the social media.

Storify is a free storytelling service, which allows users to curate stories they create by utilizing the power of social media and the internet.

It’s a very simple and free service, yet it is very powerful at what it offers your event. The concept is simple. Your attendees will tweet and blog about your event. They will post photos and videos online. This sort of marketing is great, but it lacks focus and is spread all over the Internet.

Using Storify you can search through Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Google search, links and RSS feeds for your event. The curator than begins to filter through the results and begin creating a story by dragging results to the storyline on the right. Text, images, and videos can be embedded within the storyline.

“We offer manual curation and believe that having a real person select elements to place in a story is how we add value,” Burt Herman says, Storify co-founder and CEO. “Journalists, bloggers, brands and others want to control what’s going on their site.”

The curator has full control over the narrative and the direction the story is heading. Custom text can be inserted anywhere in the storyline, which you can consider as the voice of the narrator in the documentaries. Add thoughts, questions, realizations and anything your mind desires.

It offers more flexibility and diversity over the live blogging, because it offers curators an ability to use public’s buzz about your event to lead the narrative. You’re not saying it; you’re showing others what people at the event think of it. It’s an instant review!

The storyline can be embedded within your event website. The ideal option would be to embed it inside your homepage, so visitors would see the story as it unfolds instead of static content that doesn’t offer anything of value.

In order to fully maximize the narrative’s potential you would have to delegate this task to a staff member or volunteer to do it throughout the event. Don’t let it sit untouched.

TIP: Create unique Twitter hashtag for your event and begin using it as a part of your marketing efforts. Your attendees should know what it is, so they can mark tweets about your event on Twitter. This way tweets about your event are easily available within Storify, so you can spend less time looking for them and more time narrating the story of your event.

Also, Storify has a new feature to display stories in a form of a slideshow, which is not yet publically announced. Each story bit is displayed in a form of a slide, which you can go through one by one when you use arrow keys on your keyboard.

This is a free tool. There’s no reason you should not try it out. Your event will greatly benefit from the added value the story brings to the table.

For an embedded sample story created around a popular Twitter trend, visit this original article or you can visit the Storify page where this story was created. Enjoy!

For original article, click here

Author: Viktor Nagornyy

Filed Under: Social Media, Web Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Facebook in History

November 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment



Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Storify

November 17, 2010 By 2 Comments

Storify, I am obsessed. Storify was introduced to me in one of my mass media courses recently, and since then, I have done every assignment using this site.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Storify, allow me to enlighten you. Storify allows you to use social media to create stories. With easy access to different social media sites- Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube, flickr- at your fingertips, you can choose the best stories, pictures, news articles, tweets, posts, and videos to public as stories that you can embed anywhere.

Here is a demo video on storify.

Storify demo from Burt Herman on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Facebook's New Messaging System

November 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Facebook has recently shared its new social networking messaging system with the public. Although the site claims that “it’s not e-mail” nor an “e-mail killer,” over 350 million people already use the system to send more than 4 billion messages a day.

I personally do not fully understand the concept of the new social networking system, but hopefully the video above will help you understand a bit about how the system will work. It might be a while until you get to try it out for yourself, since temporarily Facebook Messages is invite-only. The company says they will “be launching [it] and email addresses gradually and making it available to everyone over the next few months.”

A few Mashable staffers have access to Facebook Messages. Check out the gallery they have put together at this mashable site where this original article is found.

Author: Adam Ostrow

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,