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.

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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.
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Global Voices, Ethan Zuckerman

September 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Although we know the web connects the whole world, most of us end up connecting mainly with people similar to ourselves. In this video, blogger and geek Ethan Zuckerman shares his desire to link the whole of the wider world, using smart tactics to open up your Twitter world and read news in various languages.

Ethan Zuckerman is an activist and blogger, living in Western Massachusetts and working in Cambridge as a research fellow at the Berkman Center. As co-founder of Global Voices, Zuckerman says, "I'm interested in ways that citizen's media can address longstanding biases in the news media."

Rebecca MacKinnon and Zuckerman founded Global Voices in 2005 when they were both fellows at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "Initially," says Zuckerman, "we'd planned to build an aggregator of blogs from around the developing world, based on my interest in Africa and her focus on China. As more people got involved with the project, it's become something much larger and more exciting: a global community of citizen media authors, an advocacy group that works to preserve freedom of speech online, a media development organization that promotes participatory media in developing nations, a vast and distributed translation project, and a crazy set of friends from every corner of the world. It's been a joy to be involved with and is one of the projects I'm proudest of."

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Facebook Questions

July 28, 2010 By 1 Comment

Got questions? Well, Facebook will now have answers.

After testing a new feature that enables users to ask questions to the entire Facebook community, the social networking site has finally launched its final product, Facebook Questions.

With this new feature, the company will provide “ask question” as a new feature in the status box at the top of all users’ home pages as well as in the search box. This way, your questions will appear to all of Facebook’s members, and can be answered by anybody.

Remember the days when askjeeves was a main online source for questions and answers? Well, no longer. With the launch of its new feature, Facebook will now be thrust into the online question and answer market. Of course, at the release of Facebook Questions, the company will face competition from more established question and answer sites, like Yahoo Answers and Answer.com’s Wiki Answers, but I speculate that Facebook’s overall popularity will give Facebook Questions visibility and a good start.

Moreover, the new Facebook application differs from other question and answer sites in that Facebook Questions will allow users to attach photos and polls to their questions. Users will also be able to tag questions with keywords or general topics, like “cooking.” Then, the social network will direct the question to users who have that general topic listed as an interest, giving them the opportunity to provide a quality answer.

Facebook has not announced a release date for the feature, but Facebook’s Blake Ross says that for now Questions will be available only to a “limited number of people” but the company is “aiming to bring this product to all of you as quickly as we can.”

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Marketing on Facebook 101

July 26, 2010 By 1 Comment

By now, I think everyone has heard of Facebook. If you are not connected on Facebook, then you at least know one of the 400 million people who are, whether it is your friends, your mom, or the guy who works at the deli down the street.

Facebook has changed our lives and has changed the game for business marketing. This social network has created new competition and has pushed businesses to make Facebook a staple in their social media strategies. This is why having a presence on Facebook as a business is extremely important, and any marketer for a business who does not create that online presence will probably not last long in that position.

Creating a presence, however, does not just entail creating an account with Facebook, or any other social network, for that matter. Creating presence means making your Facebook page impactful and relevant. Trust me, spending the time and resources on your Facebook page will make all the difference. Upload pictures and logos and fill in your bio and other key information about your company. Facebook also makes it fairly easy to target your ideal audience. Add friends you know, add their friends, add friends of other businesses. Search through the numerous groups on Facebook to network with your target audience, and even create a group for your own business. Create a Facebook badge to share your information with other websites and link friends to your company’s website, and use Facebook events to save the money on printing flyers or mailers by advertising your event over the Internet. If you are willing to put in the extra effort (which again, could make all the difference), then set up accounts on other social networking sites and share links to these pages on your Facebook.

All in all, a little extra time and effort always pays off. Develop your Facebook page into something eye-catching and attention grabbing. Get more people interested in and aware of your Facebook page and I promise you will see greater results.

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Gaining Followers on Twitter

July 23, 2010 By 1 Comment

Gaining Twitter FollowersAs the need for social media and social networking becomes more obvious to businesses, more businesses are using social media tools to get their name out to the public. Learning how to use these tools can cause businesses problems, however, because unless you really know the full advantages of the tools and how to achieve those advantages, you will not use social media to it’s fullest extent.

In this post, I will focus on the ways a business can increase its followers on Twitter.
It is one thing for a business to get set up with a Twitter account and to fill out their information and bios, but it is another thing for that business to get people to actually stumble across or search for their social network page.

When I began working as a social media consultant, my experience with helping a business use social media was minimal. I had set up, designed and updated a Twitter account for a San Francisco makeup artist, but did not know how to get people to get interested enough in her to search for her and follow her.

The trick, I learned, is being patient and dedicating more time and work to the social networks then one may think is necessary. As a result of patience and dedication, however, a business can use Twitter not just for social interaction but also as an effective marketing platform.

First, assuming you are not a huge public figure or one of the privileged few like Kim Kardashian or the New York Times, then you will not appear in Twitter’s Suggested Users list. Instead, you will be listed on the accounts and sign up pages of thousands of Twitterers daily.

Once listed on Twitter, you can use the feature Suggested Users by going to Find People > Browse Suggestions. This suggests some top Twitter users who you can choose to follow. Once you find a user to follow, try searching through and following their other followers, because chances are, they share similar interests and may be likely to follow you back if you request to follow them. That’s where patience is truly needed, in the process of following as many people as possible in hopes that they will request to follow you back. And just to make it clear, Suggest Users are suggested as a preselected list, not on a basis of your Twitter friends or tweeting behavior, so if you do make it onto the Suggest Users list, you will end up drawing in thousands of followers.

Second, in order to increase your visibility, you should treat your Twitter profile like and other website. In other words, use word of mouth, advertisements, other websites or blogs to create traffic to your Twitter page.

Here is a list of examples I found of some traffic-driving strategies:

1. Create a tool/application and promote your profile alongside it.
2. Buy a banner ad to target tech-savvy audiences, link it to your profile.
3. Use Twitter as a tool for tech/customer support.
4. Organize a contest through your Twitter profile
5. Include links to your profile in email/forum signatures.
6. Evangelize Twitter on your blog/other blogs and include a link to your profile.
7. Connect your blog and other social media profiles to your Twitter page.
8. Learn to pitch Twitter influencers with articles relevant to their interest
9. Explicitly ask another user to recommend your profile or exchange recommendations.

My third and last strategy I will discuss is hash tags. If you do not know what a hash tag is, maybe you have seen one in someone’s tweet. It looks like this: #inception. If you are sending a tweet that contains keywords that other Twitter users would tweet about or search for, then put a numeric sign in front of that word. When you put a hash tag in your tweet, your tweet will come up along with everyone else tweeting about something containing that same hash tag. Therefore, using hash tags is a good way to create visibility on Twitter.

Mainly, the level of input you put into Twitter account will determine the level of visibility your account receives. As a marketing platform, utilizing Twitter is worth it, so take the time to request friends and make a bigger name for yourself.

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