Speaking with “GIFs”

YOU GET A GIF, YOU GET A GIF, YOU GET A GIF, EVERYONE GETS A GIF!!!

In todays digital age, many millennials have ditched those boring old things called words and have switched to those awesome things called GIFs. For all you out there that don’t know what GIF stands for its “Graphics Interchange Format”. GIFs have actually been around for much longer than you think. According to Mashable.com, the GIF was created back in June 1987 by Steve Wilhite. Originally, GIFs were used as placeholders for when websites were under construction but have always had the element of fun associated with them.

Ever since GIFs were created, people have debated over how to pronounce “GIF”. Whenever I ask someone how to pronounce it, I always get a different answer. Some people pronounce it with a hard “g” like in “graphics,” and other times people say it like “Jif peanut butter”. So, how do you say “GIF”?

GIFs have become so popular because they allow us to show emotion through a visual lens. Words limit the ways we can express our emotions while visuals add another layer to displaying emotion. GIFs and Emojis are quite similar in that they offer that literal visual element that words cannot provide. To understand a GIF though, you have to understand the larger context of whats being displayed in the GIF. Once you understand, it becomes an emotional bond that allows you to associate the action in the GIF to your own personal thoughts and feelings.

To make it even easier for people to completely ditch words and use GIFs to speak, companies have created ways to easily access GIFs. Twitter has created its own database of GIFs and have built a GIF button right at the bottom of where you post so you don’t even have to leave the app to find different GIFs. Apple has also recently allowed third-party keyboards. Many developers have capitalized on this and have create GIF keyboards so that all you have to do is quickly switch keyboards and find a GIF and send it in a text message. It’s so easy and quick now that you don’t even have to think twice when sending a GIF.

In the future, I hope GIFs will still be around. I think they have become such a key part of culture that help people show emotion in the digital world. So with that I will leave you all with some of my favorite GIFs!

Works Cited:

All GIFs for giphy.com

The Directional Arrow of Social Media

Source: https://www.grouponworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/How-to-Use-Social-Media-to-Promote-My-Groupon-Deal.jpg

When we talk about the professional uses of social media, most of the focus is on social media as a promotional tool. For individuals, job-seekers, entrepreneurs, big businesses, etc. Social media as a megaphone. Something to broadcast yourself or your business from you, towards others.

But what about the reverse trajectory? The professional uses of social media that information gathering rather than information-producing. Something that helps you to do your job better or become a better professional. The directional arrow of social media shooting inward instead of outward.

I see why most of the articles, discussions, and tips about using social media professionally talk about the megaphone aspect. That is one of the best ways to utilize social media. But I would like to take a look at the other side of the coin and explore some less publicized ways that social media can be used professionally.

Pinterest’s search feature is great for job advice too. Search just about any profession and you will find articles and infographics with ideas, tips, and other valuable information about your field. Be sure to look beyond individual pins too. There are lots of boards dedicated to specific careers or career fields, as well as pinners (Pinterest users) who have a dedicated focus on a particular career. Have the type of job that involves coming up with projects or ideas? Everyone knows that Pinterest is great for the personal uses of those things, so of course it is great for professional uses as well. An excellent example of this is the official “teachers” section of Pinterest. This Pinterest-hosted area has boards for different grade levels, pins about classroom activities or classroom decorating, and more valuable information for teachers. Check it out: https://www.pinterest.com/teachers/

Another example of information gathering from social media is Twitter chats. Certainly, there is a broadcasting element to them and some topics are less information gathering than others, but these can be an excellent way to learn or spur reflection about professional ideas in your field. Not very long ago, I participated in a Twitter chat about business leadership. I’m sure some people participated as a way to make connections or get noticed, but for me, my interest was to learn and reflect on the ideas presented. A great way to gain knowledge is to hear other people’s take on the questions asked in a Twitter chat. Focusing on the questions asked and the answers others give in a Twitter chat is a great way to use social media for personal growth, idea generation, and learning.

One final example is source gathering and/or feedback gathering through social media. If you have a job that involves interviews or your business needs feedback, social media is a great tool for that. After all, social media was the impetus for the term crowdsourcing, this discussion would not be complete without touching on some aspects of crowdsourcing. The first thing that comes to mind for this is poll options that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer. But another good example is a news reporter or news outlet looking for interview sources. For instance, I follow NPR on Facebook and I occasionally see posts from the NPR page looking for interview sources. The post asks if you are a person who fits x scenario, says that NPR would like to talk to you for a story on x subject, and gives an email address to reach out to NPR. Here’s a recent example of an NPR post looking for interview subjects:  NPR: We’re Listening

As with using professional social media as a megaphone, the ways of using professional social media information gathering are endless. This list is a fraction of the options out there. What are some examples you can think of?

The idea for this blog post was spurred by something a classmate said regarding Pinterest. My thanks to her for planting the seed.

Bots are not your friends: A Twitter followers analysis

My friend Harrison, who like me is an editor at The Pitt News, added a couple key words to his Twitter profile a few weeks ago, and got unexpected results. He added the terms “Managing” and “Web Production,” and gained about 800 followers literally overnight.

Most of these accounts are either bots or “follow-for-follow” accounts most of us on Twitter have probably seen or experienced, where they follow and are followed by a high volume of users. Gradually, when these accounts saw Harrison was not going to follow them back, they began to rescind their attention to him.

In addition to adding keywords like this, it is even possible to simply buy followers for your account — for pride or business reasons, this is a sustained, tangible phenomenon. But still, the question remains for people interested in quickly increasing their follower count in any way possible: Are there downsides to manufacturing Twitter followers?

After all, as Silicon Valley marketing executive Guy Kawasaki said, “There are two kinds of people on social networks: Those who want more followers and those who are lying.”

So some will say, “yes, give me more followers, any way possible.”

For anyone looking to find a job in the digital space, and particularly in social media, demonstrating the ability to create social media buzz by having a large number of personal followers would theoretically look great to potential employers. And it’s easy: a cursory Google search, and I am one click away from buying 1,000 Twitter followers for just $15. In the long run, it seems like a great investment.

As Forbes’ Chereen Zaki said, “In a digital world, where not only individuals, but brands are pushing their way to the top — influence is key. You are that much more likely to get a job when your employer checks your Twitter to find thousands of followers retweeting you.”

But employers can easily detect this, and to them, it is essentially a form of lying.

There are plenty of apps, like Social Baker’s FakeFollowers application, that can detect the ratio of spam or bot accounts with a profile. If that ratio runs over about 20%, that is often the cutoff for employers to view yours as a shady and dishonest account. Analytics would not be on your side, as well. TwitterCounter.com provides recent follower statistics, and these pay sites give followers all at once, so the data spike would come off as an extreme irregularity.

Besides, social media professionals are not interested in the sheer quantity of followers you can get: it is all about the interaction and conversation you can start as a brand. Social media blogger Ian Anderson Gray summarized it best, saying, “You aren’t getting people who are interested or willing to engage with you. You are merely buying numbers.”

That engagement will not come with nameless, faceless machines providing simple retweets and favorites — sorry, likes.

Social media professionals will be more interested with a grassroots, hard-working and effective plan for building a follower base from the ground up, not a simple shortcut. Let’s face it, if something this easy had no downsides, everyone would be doing it.

Because a strong Twitter presence is all about engagement, there are apps that actually do focus around helping on that end. ManageFlitter can help filter lists to provide suggestions for influential and relevant (and real) figures who are the most likely to follow back and actually engage with you in social media discourse.

You can do this on your own, too. Search Twitter, find people in your field who successfully create dialogue, and note how they do it. Follow and tweet at these people, try it for yourself, and possibly the most important, be creative. The most effective way to stand out in such a crowded space it by being yourself, showing a personality, and not being afraid to accentuate it.

For Harrison, this onslaught happened through no fault of his own — he did not buy anything, and had no idea what would happen. It is still a cautionary tale of how the Twitterbot army can strike from nowhere.
After all, it’s better to have 100 dedicated and interactive followers than an army of 10,000 faceless, spam-driven entities. And employers know it, too.

 

Links:

iag.me/socialmedia/4-reasons-why-you-should-not-buy-followers

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chereenzaki/2013/03/26/paying-for-followers-may-cost-you-a-job/#c4c5babbc994

Images from Giphy

A Crash Course in Selling Yourself Online

A Crash Course in Selling Yourself Online

Everyday we walk out our front doors and sell ourselves to the public. What you wear, how you walk, how you speak, even what you eat and drink can influence people into “buying” you—as a friend, partner, or future employee. Now that the internet is a part of our lives, we sell ourselves online as well.

The problem is that many people do not realize this, that unless they are purposefully creating a profile to attract followers or employers, they can post whatever they want. You can always make your social media private, but in this day and age most businesses want to be able to find you and see who you really are, and they believe social media can answer this for them. Once you realize this, it is quite easy to control how you are selling yourself and get people to buy you, even having never met you.

1. Find the Best Audience

There are many, many social media platforms nowadays. Each one is designed to fit a specific niche for the public, and when you decide who you want to attract, it is very simple to pick one out.

First, just think about what your main goal is. Are you focusing on the professional or personal side? For the professional, everyone knows to have a Linkedin, but out of the other social media sites, Facebook should be your second choice. Personal has a much wider net, as you aren’t looking to inform people basic facts about yourself, you are looking to entertain.

2. Focus on Your Best Abilities

Don’t try to show that you have a wide range of interests. That’s great on a date or an in person interview, but online, people want to know what you have mastered, not what you can do on an amateur level.

Also, when you focus on one or two specific abilities or interests, your followers will begin to think of you in everyday life whenever they come across those topics. Or, employers may see if you are available to hire if a job within your abilities opens up.

3. Participate in Discussions

Put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to talk in a group or on a hashtag. Let people know that you have opinions and knowledge on certain facts. Make sure you know about the topic beforehand if you are commenting, but you can also ask questions to those who know more about the topic. This will create bonds between you and other users and get your name out there more than you would by just having a profile. People need to know you exist before you can sell yourself.

4. Always Overachieve

People want to think they’re getting the best product our there, so that is what you need to be. Look at the most successful users on your platform and take note on their content and how often they post and discuss with others, then do better than them.

Always keep in your mind that you want to be the best out of everyone else who shares your interests or abilities. Participate online and off by showing your lifestyle and experiences out in the real world as well.

5. Take it Slow and Steady

Selling yourself online should be a slow process. You don’t want 15 minutes of fame, because then people will easily brush you off afterwards. Post everyday, more than once a day, and make sure you do not rush into any heated controversies which might lose you respect—especially since nothing can really be deleted and people can drag back a mistake you made years later.

Take your time and establish yourself, this isn’t an elevator pitch. You want to be a solid, life-long product.

Sources:

https://blog.slideshare.net/2013/10/07/how-to-present-and-sell-yourself-online

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/eight-steps-for-successfu_b_371191.html

http://www.nimble.com/blog/the-art-of-selling-yourself-online-5-ways-to-introduce-yourself-through-social-media/

Keeping Up With the Teenagers: How Gen Z Uses Social Media

We’ve all seen it. The blunder a company makes on social media that makes it blatantly obvious how #hip and #trendy they’re trying to be, without actually using the popular culture reference in the right way. It can even be so bad that the company quickly loses followers.

Millennials are currently the youngest demographic in the professional sector, and as a result Millennials are often the ones curating content for social media sites. This content is going to be increasingly directed towards the next up-and-coming generation, Gen Z, as they currently make up 25.9% of the population and have $44 billion in purchasing power. This makes them an obvious demographic for targeted marketing campaigns.

Therefore, it would be really wise for those pursuing careers in social media and marketing to familiarize themselves with the social media habits of those currently in high school and entering college. While Millennials grew up as social media evolved, Gen Z are known as social media natives. And they prefer this social media to be across five screens.

Researchers have begun to notice that whereas Millennials are on every social media platform, Gen Z is more selective with their social media consumption. As a result, social media managers will have to be extra-savvy in regards to what content they are putting online, how they are doing so, and how often. Even more so, Gen Z most often consumes videos and images, making things like infographics increasingly important. Not so important to Gen Z? Twitter. Unfortunately, Gen Zers probably won’t be a fan of this blog either.

Gen Z vs. Gen Y: Does the Hype Add Up?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-fuels-a-change-in-generations-with-the-rise-of-gen-z/

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/gen-z-infographic-can-help-marketers-get-wise-future-159642

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2016/03/how-gen-z-is-using-social-media.html

This Gen-Z Teenager Explains Why and How She Uses Various Social Media Platforms