{8.31} Hump Day

Yes, your favorite Hump Day posts of my favorite links of the week are back. Here we go…
The power of social media helps find missing student… all the way in Malaysia.
Austin needs a version of this site, Let’s Meet and Work.
Thank goodness Anderson Cooper has not seen my YouTube videos, he would have a few more to make fun of.
Hipster Ipsum – making the wireframes of Austin, TX and Williamsburg, NY more cliche (and awesome) everyday. Do you need some text for your website, blog or whatever? *sigh* Okay…
The biggest, best infographic I have ever seen.
And last, a stop motion video of California – it is gorgeous and that weather looks a lot nicer than this record-breaking heat in Texas.

Facebook ‘likes’ journalists.

Facebook is after world domination. That might be a bit of a severe overstatement, but the social networking website is extending its reach to a new crowd. The crowd is not web-addicted college kids or first-time social media sharing grandmas – it is journalists, a crowd who helps shape the activity and use of social media. In an effort to encourage the use of Facebook in the newsroom, the site has unveiled a new Facebook Page and meetup program specifically for journalists. An article in Mashable explains:

The new Page, Journalists on Facebook, is intended to be a resource for journalists who want to incorporate social media into their reporting, networking and storytelling. “The Page will provide journalists with best practices for integrating the latest Facebook products with their work and connecting with the Facebook audience of more than 500 million people,” Facebook Director of Media Partnerships Justin Osofsky wrote in a blog post.

I need to make a virus video.

Yes Jen Aniston, in the digital world of advertising and marketing you are insignificant. Kennan Cahill wins.

And this is exactly what I learned after a “professional” week in New York City visiting advertising agencies – talk about good timing finding this video today.

From March 2 to March 6 I hiked around Manhattan with a gaggle of journalism students. We literally looked like a gaggle, with two “mamma” seniors (Morgan and myself) out front who actually knew how to use the subways and about twenty baby geese non-New Yorkers following behind. Over two days we visited eight advertising agencies including VML, MediaVest, Ketchum, and appssavvy. And while each was very different, labeling themselves as PR experts, traditionally focused, or even media buyers, they all had one thing in common – digital campaigns were how they were getting attention for their clients.

Social media for the Valentine impaired.

I know you’ve been waiting for another Socialnomics video… If my boyfriend ever resorts to this I’ll give him props on his savvy social media skills and then dump him on the spot. Fair warning.

The Starburst mob.

When it comes to candy – my personal preference always goes to chocolate, so it is not surprising that I don’t really like Starbursts all that much. But, according to Facebook, I do “like” them in the social media world. Fourteen million other people do too – I don’t think those numbers can lie, there must be something somewhat good about the chewy blocks of sugar. That’s how many likes Starbursts currently has on Facebook – and that’s not all Starburst has. It has the power of a mob. If there is one brand that proves you can mobilize the power of Facebook to be something real, Starbursts is the winner.

Mob Case Study from Daniel Stein on Vimeo.

The greatest intersection on the blogosphere.

 

ome companies get social media and some do not. Those who do have one thing in common – they establish a brand. Their brands are authentic, personable and brutally obvious. Some of the the companies who I have found doing the best job with this are in fashion. I have conversations with @katespadeNY daily and feel like @bergdorfs is one of my best friends (who happens to have an amazing fabulous incredible e n o r m o u s closet). I think I have fallen for these brands because of the voice they use to promote themselves. You know there is a real woman behind that twitter/facebook/blog account. She literally lets you into her wardrobe and life.

So here are two social media spots in fashion that can teach any company out there how to create a brand and become more than a storefront.

1. Things We Love: The “behind the curtains” website connected to katespade.com

Social media for a cause.

y Facebook status currently says “I like it on the yellow room’s couch.” It is a reference to the television room in my sorority house and also my support for fighting breast cancer. An article on the Huffington Post explains:

October is breast cancer awareness month and the “I like it on” trend is an attempt for women to unite around that cause in a top secret way. The idea is literally to leave men in the dark.

This isn’t the first time a Facebook status update has gone viral. Less than a year ago, the bra color Facebook status update went viral, also in support of raising breast cancer awareness.

Of the 15 ‘friends’ currently popping up on my Facebook newsfeed (literally as I look at it right now mid-post), eight have statuses saying “I like it on…” That’s pretty impressive considering this viral sensation only took off earlier this week and I live in Mid-Missouri where we tend to be a step or two behind on some things. This social media campaign is getting press and attention – two things any ’cause’ craves. But let’s look at it from a bigger picture, what can Facebook possibly do for breast cancer…

This is a tweet I saw this morning that perfectly sums up the shortcomings of this Facebook effort…

Yesterday, as women decided where they like their purses, 111 women across the US died from breast cancer. #RealAwareness#RealityCheck

#RealAwareness and #RealityCheck were the perfect hash tags. If a social media campaign wants to have true effects it needs to prompt something. After I changed my status to “I like it on the yellow room’s couch” I had nothing to do next. Maybe if I was then asked to go to an informational video, a donations page, or actual event – then the campaign would really be worthwhile. As it stands, all it is doing is giving my random guy friends a chance to comment on my status with lewd questions asking where else I like “it.”

P.S. I put this post on the Her Campus Staff Blog as well – check it out!

(Drop cap artwork from www.dailydropcap.com)

Most Popular (online)

Popularity – a word hard to define but easy to use. Following my Twitter post from yesterday, here is the Socialnomics video all about the power and explosion of social media.

Watering Coach’s poppies.

oppy flowers may be part of the Wicked Witch’s evil plans in The Wizard of Oz, but they don’t scare away Coach. The popular high-end accessory and apparel brand is making poppy flowers the center of a new marketing project, one with an entirely social media focus. Poppies will be popping up all over twitter, facebook, and blogs – here’s how they will grow…

The Poppy Project is an innovative art project by Coach that celebrates bloggers and blog readers in the spirit of the new Poppy collection. To participate, blog administrators embed a small piece of code in the header tag of their site and a pattern appears on the sidebar which bloggers and readers will be able to interact with through tweets, facebook “Likes” and site visits. The more interaction, the more the poppy pattern grows. Each pattern even has a chance to grow a Coach Poppy purse – if someone finds the purse and clicks on it, Coach awards them a gift.

The entire project is innovative. It combines the strengths of various social media tools and puts them all to use in one major project. Poppy itself is already a fun brand – channeling a design which brings in a young “PINK-esque” Victoria Secret market with a higher-end, designer savvy cliental.  Now, by reaching out through the online community, Poppy will bring in more views for it’s line and more publicity for its entire campaign. It is exciting to see a company not just reach out through social media with a simple contest, but to reach out through social media with an entire line of tools for anyone to use.

Well… almost anyone. I wish I could add a poppy pattern to my blog, but unfortunately you can only place code in WordPress headers if you purchase a domain and WordPress upgrade (both things I will do as soon as I have a real income). In other words, using the WordPress.com free version doesn’t make the cut. I am restricted from fully participating, but I still want to see the Poppy campign take off… so get ready for some #growpoppy grow tweets from me.

Even though the poppies in The Wizard of Oz put her to sleep, don’t be surprised if you see Dorothy embracing the Coach Poppy and maybe even skipping down the yellow brick road with a new clutch or accessory for Todo sometime soon.

Drop cap art from dailydropcap.com

Legal larceny.

Look at them Apples - my very first class in college. Enough Apples and journalism nerds in the room to scare anyone away.

I figured out why companies want interns. They want to steal our ideas.

That may sound mean, but it’s true – it’s legal larceny.

This week I participated in a discussion group about SI.com. A group of interns and I sat around and took questions from SI.com staff. We talked about online use, twitter accounts, video content, page design, mobile applications, and social media identity – pretty much everything any journalism nerd skips class to sit around RJI to debate.

And the discussion was a perfect setting for me – I like to talk, I like having opinions, and I really like talking about my opinions on online/social media. Plus they threw in sports. Screw volunteering for this, I would have PAID to be part of the group.

The beauty of it all was that everyone in the room was exactly like me. Nerd haven. They gave us one question to start the discussion – what do you think of our facebook page – and off we went. The simple lunch discussion turned into two hours of complete brand evaluation. The best part was that our group was the perfect mix. Interns have a facilitating combination of journalism knowledge, millennial generation ideology, understanding of a company’s capabilities, and ambitious attitudes willing to suggest ideas outside the box.

Before you knew it we had redeveloped SI.com (okay, not really – but we did have some worthwhile comments).

SI.com got a lot out of our discussion. I think we confirmed and contradicted some of their decisions – giving them ideas to grow and recreate. But, how about us interns? We had our ideas willingly stolen. Besides that, what did we get out of it?

More than you may think.

We realized that, yes, sometimes we do know more than the bosses. We can see from an outsider’s perspective, but with an insider’s understanding. Yes, we are valuable. They listened to our opinions and genuinely wanted to understand our thoughts. What we said can create change. Yes, we can contribute. Interns can be more than fact checkers, sometimes those little ideas you come up with sitting in your cubicle can actually be put in effect. So, overall, yes – we are earning our pay (at least for today).

If there is another intern discussion in the next few weeks, count me in. I like to talk, but, more importantly, I like what I get out of it.