The Lo-Down

Every once in a while, Myspace gets brought up in conversation, usually in relation to the topic of Facebook, and people want to know where did Myspace go? In my endless curiosity, I started surfing the wonderful web to find out what they are up to.

I am an intern for a music marketing company, so when I’m looking up music related things, Google sometimes refers me to Myspace.  This as well sparked my curiosity because what I remember about Myspace was more of connecting with friends online than finding information on music or movies. Upon returning my interests to Myspace, I found it completely changed from what I remember it as.

One of my favorite blogs, The Huffington Post, did a post about the history of Myspace. Going through the timeline gives me a sense of nostalgia. It’s interesting that Myspace used to be the most visited website (beating Google even) in 2006, two years after it’s official launch. It wasn’t until 2008 that Facebook created some legitimate competition for Myspace, and then another four years for Myspace to significantly decrease in traffic and be put up for sale along with layoffs of around 500 employees.

Now what are we left with? Well, mostly articles about the fall of the network, and the fact that Myspace has converted almost entirely to an entertainment information site.

A question that I continue to ask myself is “What is so special about Instagram?”  All of a sudden, I started seeing all these pictures on Facebook and Twitter with a certain kind of look that I soon found to be Instagram. In all this confusion, I wanted to know more about Instagram and what makes it so special. Upon looking at their website they said they started Instagram to solve three simple problems:

Mobile photos always come out looking mediocre. Our awesome looking filters transform your photos into professional-looking snapshots.

Sharing on multiple platforms is a pain – we help you take a picture once, then share it (instantly) on multiple services.

Most uploading experiences are clumsy and take forever – we’ve optimized the experience to be fast and efficient.

I don’t personally have Instagram, which might be where the majority of my confusion stems, but because of this I find myself curious and asking Instagram users what it is about the service that makes it so cool and widely popular? The most common answers I’ve received tie in pretty close to the three problems that Instagram sought to solve. Some people have said it’s because you’re provided with so many options to edit your photos, some say it’s how easily you can share your photos on multiple services at once, and others say it’s simply because there’s nothing else like it.

Dead week and finals week are a stressful time for college students like myself. We’re busting our butts to know each and every aspect of the curriculum for tests while at the same time making room for term papers and final projects. Here’s a definition of finals week from Urban Dictionary just to put it in perspective:

“The worst week of a college or high school students life. Finals week involves pulling an all nighter to reverse the months of slacking that have killed their grades. Finals week involves a lot of stress and very little sleep, the college or highschool student will be on edge the entire time, thus it is not a good time to screw with them by playing practical jokes or something you might find funny.”

Facebook and Twitter (and now Pinterest), for most, can make this task more difficult. These networks are the prime form of procrastination. Some students go as far as to trade Facebook passwords with friends until the week is over so that the temptation can be taken away. It’s so easy to subconsciously find your way to Facebook when your studying, that this can be effective.

However, being on these networks can provide a form of release when studying also. Throughout my years as a student, I have always been told to take breaks. Social media networks usually can serve as this much needed break. One thing I like to do is use Facebook as a form of motivation. I’ll tell myself that I can be on Facebook after I finish another page of my paper, or after I get through this stack of notecards I can get on Pinterest for ten minutes.

Mashable provides a helpful post about the effects of Facebook on studying. The stigma of Facebook’s effects on academics is mostly negative. However, they highlight some of the positives as well. The author, Jolie O’Dell provides a really great visual that shows how social media is integrated in our lives.

This subject is particularly interesting to me, because I am highly interested in social media. As a New Media Communications major, and in my particular area of interest, a lot of my school work involves social media networks, and I find it works really well for me to incorporate my work with something that I use personally.

Pinterest is a relatively new network in the social media world.  It pulls people together in a way that Facebook and Twitter only touch at.  There are still some people out there who haven’t heard of Pinterest, or have heard of it but don’t know much about it.  It’s been around for about two years, but has seen a massive increase in interest just within the past couple of months. As seen in their mission statement, it is a site that connects people based on interests. Time magazine called Pinterest one of the five best social media sites of 2011.

Pinterest is mostly for “consumers” to pin products, pictures, ideas, etc. on their boards. However, thinking of it from the other side as a producer, you need to get your products or services out there on this network to be seen. The thing is, the “pins” have the option of being a link. For example, a retail store would post pictures of outfits from their latest line and that pin would act as a link to their online store.

My experience comes from the consumer side. When I’m itching to get some new clothes, my “fashion” board on Pinterest is the first place I go, and might I add, I’ve given quite a few of stores some good business this way. However, fashion and retail is not the only thing that gets exposed through this network.  Recipes are a good example of what can commonly be exposed a Pinterest.

Jason Miles provides a very straightforward website that breaks this down pretty accurately, and in addition, is accurately titled Marketing on Pinterest.

“LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 120 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.”

What’s a great way to incorporate a social network into more everyday and all the time living? Make it a smartphone app! And if anyone has mastered this concept, it’s the people at Foursquare.

For this post, I wanted to write about using Facebook and Twitter to promote a brand, service, etc. I am currently a campus representative for American Eagle Outfitters. As a rep, it is my job to stay active on Facebook to promote events that we hold on campus and the brand itself. We find strategies to get more “likes” on the AE Student Union at Oregon State page. I wanted to talk about how we go about advertising and promoting.

Because of the nature of what we are doing, it is important to reach a large audience. Therefore, we need more people to like the page to see what events we are going to do, or sales that are happening in the store. When someone likes a page on Facebook, it is shown on their friends’ newsfeed. This is very effective to gain more likes. What we notice is that when we get a couple of people to like the page, we see more and more like it also after seeing there friends do it.  That’s why we try and ask people to go and like it so that other people can see and do it too.

Throughout the year, I found it very effective to post on my personal page about the AE page. By doing this, it reaches a separate audience other than just those who have liked the page. However, when posting on both my personal page and the AE page, I always try to post content not only relevant to the brand, but relevant to the students as well. For example, we like to post about school wide events like Mom’s weekend in combination with American Eagle.

Posting about the Facebook page on Twitter can also be a method to reach on audience you don’t get on Facebook. Sometimes before an event, I’ll tweet something like “Live Your Life event tomorrow go here to get details!” and provide the link to the AE page.

I’ve loved this job this year and have learned very much about promoting through Facebook, but there is still a lot more to it and I’m excited to continue doing this to keep learning how to get better.

The ethics I think are the strongest I found in the Online Journal Review. The strongest ones in my opinion are “check it out, then tell the truth” and “disclose”.  It is important to check your resources before you publish your work. If one thing you write is not accurate, it could ruin your entire reputation and credentials.  On a similar note, it’s important for readers to know where the information the are receiving from you is coming from which is why disclosing your information is important. I would not want readers of my blog to be skeptical of the information that I am giving them. I am also very cautious of plagiarism in my writing. I try to use as many links as necessary so that I am not giving myself too much credit.

To address the first ethical issue about someone else using my posts, I would want to make sure that there is a link to my site so that the readers are able to refer there for more information on a similar beat I may be writing on. In the OJR’s code of ethics, they are specific for plagiarism that if you are referring to another website you should put a link there to cite it. I think this applies here. I would get in contact with the blogger using my posts, and ask her to include a link.

On social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, there are a lot of rumors that go around, but a lot of truth also. I think it is very important for journalists and writers to not post a one-source story, but not for regular people. Journalists are followed on social media outlets specifically for the reason of relaying information, but ordinary people do not and therefore are not required to post something more completely accurate, although it’s obviously better if they do. The disclosing information rule applies here. A lot of times, I see online journals tweet about an article and give the link to their site and another, or if not another then they at least have sources linked in their article. However, if regular people tweet about that same thing and someone finds it interesting they can look it up themselves and know not to rely heavily on the source they first heard it from.