SearchInfluence

I love social media. I also love staying organized. The great thing about hashtags is they bring the two together. For those who don’t know, hashtags are a way to categorize a post on social media platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, by tagging it with descriptive words or phrases. Hashtags are also helpful for businesses running specific campaigns to monitor what followers are saying about their company. Although we all love reading about the latest social media blunders, we never want to fall victim to them ourselves. That is why I’ve compiled a list of questions to ask yourself when choosing a hashtag.

Although some consider Twitter the redheaded stepchild to the social media behemoth that is Facebook, brands are beginning to recognize and harness the “real time value” of Tweeting. No one can deny that Twitter is growing in both users and usage. The number of tweets per day has increased from 95 million in 2010 to a staggering 340 million per day in 2012, that’s 236,111 tweets per minute! Brands have started advertising on the fly, attempting to engage and interact with their audiences via #Twitter.

On Friday, I received an email from Facebook regarding their Page Insights. My initial reactions were “Great! They’ve finally realized how horrible their reporting system is and are making changes!” Boy, was I wrong. The email in its entirety is below, but the man gist is that they have been incorrectly reporting on the number of total, organic, and paid impressions and reach as reported through their Page Insights. Supposedly, the Ad Insights and Billing Data reporting tools are not affected, not that those are great anyway.

They promise that these issues will be fixed by today and “moving forward, your impressions and reach numbers in Page Insights will reflect these updates.”

During this evening’s 85th Academy Awards, jcpenney used real-time marketing to capitalize on our here and now, instant gratification tendencies by launching a strong activation through social media. The goal of the Oscars campaign was to grab new viewers and continue to update their more-than-outdated, less-than-classy image.

To begin, their Twitter page, much like many Oscar attendees, put its best face forward with a glitzy makeover:

Before this evening it’s very likely that you, your wife, girlfriend, or 20 something daughter certainly didn’t think of jcpenney as fresh, on trend, glitzy, luxurious, or modern. Some of you may not have even thought it was still a surviving entity.

In 2012, the number of people using social media grew to 1.43 billion users. This stark increase in tweeting, posting, and pinning has grabbed the attention of traditional marketers – most notably: Television. TV shows are not only leveraging social to increase brand awareness and interactions but to increase ratings. While some shows are “duh, winning”, there have been some shows that are just doing it all wrong. This post is going to take a look at my winner and loser of TV social media in 2012.

Winner: RuPaul’s Drag Race

Shameless Plug: The new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race starts Jan 28 on Logo

Super Bowl advertising spots are one of the most sought after 30 seconds in television each year. With the event having an estimated viewership of well over 110 million, many national companies view the hefty $4 million dollar price tag as money well spent. In fact, the New York Times reported that the ad spots were already sold out on January 8th, almost a full month before the big event. In recent years many companies have amped up their traditional television campaigns to include YouTube sneak peeks, dedicated websites, hashtags, Facebook campaigns, and apps designed to garner appeal and catch their audience’s attention on the second screen. Social media is a growing factor in many major corporation’s 2013 Super Bowl advertising campaigns, which is a huge change from the surprise element and secretive campaigns of years past.

While social media marketing is a useful and effective means of interacting with your customer base, not every campaign has the moxie to make your efforts take off — but one recently-revived cult television show is pulling out all the stops. Arrested Development has long been known for actively engaging its fanbase with inside jokes, subtle callbacks and clever Easter eggs. Cancelled after just two and a half short but brilliant seasons, AD accumulated such a devoted fanbase that the outcry prompted a full-scale resurrection over eight years later. Now that Netflix has revived the show for another 14 episodes, the show has dedicated its online efforts to getting fans excited all over again. By leveraging the show’s trademark subtle callbacks and absurdist humor, Netflix is keeping its userbase and its desires in mind — the first and most important rule of an ...

2012 was truly a year of phenomenal social campaigns by many national companies. However, with the good came plenty of bad. Here are some of the year’s worst campaigns, and how you can avoid these gaffes in your own businesses’ online marketing.

12. Kansas City Chiefs
A disappointed fan tweeted at the Kansas City Chiefs in September, calling the owner greedy and unethical. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, the fan took a screenshot of the offensive direct message he received back and posted the message to Reddit, where it went viral within hours.

We’ve touched on the importance of having a good Twitter handle, but just as important is the content of your tweets. While in the past you could expect to be chastised for a misspelling or typo in the classroom, social media platforms like Twitter now make your mistakes public in a way that they weren’t before — and people of the Internet are far less forgiving.

Twitter blunders can range from comical misspellings on your personal account…

to accidentally tweeting from an employer’s account.

Or it could include the posting of insensitive and/or offensive material.

Instagram, the popular photo sharing app recently acquired by Facebook, will be changing its Terms of Service next year. This change in terms, slated to take effect January 16th, provoked a massive storm of criticism because of ambiguous language that some interpreted as allowing the company to sell the licensing to photos posted on the site to various advertisers.

The language in question states that in using Instagram, “you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”