Twitter - The Musical

I stumbled across this video on YouTube and couldn’t help but share. It first starts off making fun of Twitter, talking about how people use Twitter frivolously to do things like post what they are eating and post pictures of their feet. But then, they get into why Twitter is important, including bringing up how Twitter helped spread word about the Arabs, and how it connects us to news and important information.

It made me wonder how people really view social media. With these stereotypes out there, a lot of people probably don’t take it seriously. But in reality, it’s an amazing source of news and information. I personally don’t watch the news or even visit news websites, but I do browse Twitter every day and get a lot of my news that way. If a story is breaking, it’s guaranteed to be on Twitter. In fact, I’m much more likely to hear about a story on social media before I would catch it on the news.

What are some stereotypes you hear about Twitter, and other social media, and how do you think those will change as social media continues to grow and progress?

Video Source: AVbyte

Blog Carnival

Hey everyone! Since I’ve been working on this blog for class, I’m taking part in our blog carnival to showcase some of the excellent work of my classmates! Here are some of my favorite posts from the blogs of my classmates:

Mobile Marketing is a Must! I love this post from my classmate, Kate. I especially like how she included an infographic. In this infographic, it detailed some good points about why businesses should use mobile marketing, and Kate eased my worries about being addicted to my cell phone by admitting to being addicted herself.  

5 tips for writing a good blog post by Stacy is great. While I did a post myself on tips for blogging, she covered 5 different, yet equally important, tips for bloggers.  My favorite two were to use an engaging graphic and editing your post by printing it out and reading it aloud. I’ve never really used pictures in this blog, but I agree that it is a good way to quickly grab someone’s eye and break up a monotonous text post. As for editing, I always edited my papers this way in school but never thought of how much it would help with finding errors in my blog posts, too!

The Narrowing Gap Between Digital and Traditional Media by Ed is an incredibly thorough post that provides a lot of information. I love how he discusses the connection between traditional and digital mediums, including broadcast news stations using Twitter feeds. I was also very interested in how successful Publix is with their social media, because I never would have thought of following a grocery store on Facebook, but they seem to be incredibly successful through this target marketing.

Klout by Yusef is another great post detailing a much less familiar social media platform. Klout actually takes your social media influence and grades you on it, then rewards you based on how high that grade is. I think if you are trying to use social media as a business, or to develop your own personal brand, Klout is a great indicator of how successful you are without having to delve into complicated analytics.

Hopefully you enjoyed these posts as much as I did! I love getting to look at the blogs of my classmates and see how everyone has a different take on our blog assignments.

Until next time!

App Review: Foursquare

For my app review, I decided to choose Foursquare. With this app, you “check in” to locations. Like other social media platforms, you can have friends, “like” and comment on check-ins, and discover new places. You can make lists of places you want to go, or your favorite places that you have been, and share these lists with other users.

The app has been around since 2007 and has fluctuated in popularity since then. Foursquare is available for free download for both iOS and Android, and in addition to the app, Foursquare can also be accessed from the web.

Many businesses use Foursquare to promote themselves, sending out alerts when a Foursquare user is nearby, trying to lure them in with exclusive offers. Often, checking in to a location on Foursquare unlocks an offer such as a free appetizer, or a discount on merchandise. Many businesses put a Foursquare sticker in the window of their storefront to let users know that checking in will give them some sort of perk.

I’ve been using this app since about 2011 and I’m personally a big fan. It’s incredibly user friendly, and comes with nothing but benefits for the user. You can turn off the location alerts if they bother you, and set your privacy as strict as you want. The only concern that some users have is the fact that businesses and people connected with the app itself can know their physical location any time they check in. While I think that is a legitimate concern, no one HAS to use Foursquare, and these same privacy concerns are present with almost any type of social media.

For more information or to join Foursquare, you can get more information here: https://foursquare.com/

Hatching Twitter

For my free post, I decided to write about the book I’m currently reading: Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton. This is the true story about how Twitter was founded and the drama that ensued when the four founders clashed.

As a social media addict, when I started seeing reviews about this book I was immediately interested. Where did they come up with the idea? How did something so seemingly simple gain such intense popularity so quickly? How was it that one element that other platforms already had (status updates) could manage to hold its own so well? I picked up the book and although I’m not finished yet, I’m hooked on the story and what I‘ve learned so far.

The book starts off with one of the founders, Evan “Ev” Williams being ousted as CEO of Twitter and replaced by Dick Costolo, the COO (Bilton 2013, 2). It then flashes back to the early days, when Ev became famous for creating Blogger (Bilton 2013, 16). After selling out to Google, he then teamed up with some guys working on early podcasting (Bilton 2013, 26).  Not sure yet where it will evolve, but ultimately I’m sure it turns into Twitter.

While I’ve never watched The Social Network, I imagine it’s the same premise. Humanizing something like a social media really puts it into perspective. Something we are so heavily reliant on today started as a simple idea tossed around by a few young guys. It’s also fascinating to learn how intertwined a lot of these platforms were, that they were all the brainchild of only a few different individuals.

Source:

Bilton, Nick. Hatching Twitter. New York: The Penguin Group, 2013.

Blogging Best Practices

Maintaining a blog is hard work, as is clearly evidenced by the fact that I can’t seem to maintain one…ever. But aside from that initial time and effort, what makes a blog successful? I’ve researched a few best practices in blogging on EchoDitto that will help transform your blog into something that people actually want to read.

• It’s okay to be opinionated and show your personality. Isn’t that the whole purpose of a blog in the first place? If people didn’t want to know your opinion, they could just read the news. Are you passionate about something? Show it! Be more interesting than the back of a cereal box.

• Links and tags are your friend. If you want your blog to be seen, don’t shy away from shameless plugging! Link to your own posts in other posts. Tag your entries with relevant key words to help them appear on search engines more easily. If it could be at all relevant, tag it.

• Interaction is key. Your readers want to know that you are hearing what they have to say. If someone leaves a comment on your blog, respond to them! Again, if they didn’t want that personal element they could seek out the same information somewhere other than a blog.

I’ve also learned simply from observation and being a blog reader myself that it’s best if the blogger keeps to a regular posting schedule, and clearly advertises that schedule. It’s a lot easier for the reader if they know specifically when you will have a new post up. Checking back multiple times in the hopes of seeing something new will just frustrate the reader and cause them to give up on you if there isn’t any new content to feed their hungry minds.

It’s funny that the girl that can’t maintain a blog to save her life is discussing best practices, but the first step in succeeding is having the knowledge to succeed! Hopefully these tips will help skyrocket your blog (and mine, if I ever get it off the ground) to glory!

Source:

“Blogging Best Practices.” EchoDitto (blog), n.d. Accessed February 24, 2014. http://www.echoditto.com/insights/blogging-best-practices.