Social Media Class Final Project

My closest friends don't call me by my first name, "Nicole." Instead, I go by "nikkimann17." That's right -- my best friends know me by my reputation on Twitter. I'm also known as the fastest fingers on Facebook: I'm usually the first to "like" a status or a photo. My reputation on the internet, and social media specifically, has merged with my real social life. I came to realize the full impact of this last weekend, when someone I'd never met came up to me at a party and said, "Hey, you're Nicole Mann! I know you from Facebook!"

When I first joined social media sites, of course, I never planned to use them in such a way. I joined Facebook and Twitter simply because a few of my close friends had their own profiles and I wanted to stay connected. Today, I've managed to utilize these social media tools to build my own brand - however small at the moment - and made a name for myself among small communities I interact with.

As fantastic as social media may be for connecting people, I find it most fascinating when it is used for branding and advertising. Briefly I had a job at a political media company called R&M Political where I blogged about social media. But my favorite part of the job was the "Twitter Fail of the Day," where I pointed out examples of companies failing to successfully capitalize on the use of Twitter. Here were some of my favorite examples:

The White House spells Libya wrong.

Some of the greatest were the pocket tweets -- this one from an MSNBC reporter.

And then of course there's this, from the offical Chrysler Twitter account via some frustrated intern, no doubt:

And this one from a legitimate news organization:

It's amazing to me to witness the birth of social media use in advertising, which really only started taking off in the past year, and to analyze how some companies and public figures misuse it.

Part of the reason that advertising works so effectively on social media is simply because it is spreadable. Tweets can be retweeted, Facebook posts and Youtube videos can be shared, and suddenly your target audience is exponential. This is part of the reason that people I've never met know me: my friends like the content that I tweet and post and share it with their friends -- and my name is still included. What encourages such movement is the fact that the media is spread within organic communities that form between people with similar interests. For instance, if I post something on Twitter about a celebrity sighting on the university campus, all of my fellow GW students will retweet the news among each other, both building the community and my personal brand and reputation among my peers. Similarly, if I post some news about D.C. that I read on a city blog, the online community of D.C. newzies will retweet and discuss my piece, which again works toward establishing my stake in this community and furthering my reputation.

The biggest challenge for these media companies is in figuring out how best to interact with the public. Jenkins describes the problem for these companies in context of the contemporary media convergence, where old and new media are colliding and transforming the way people use information: "Convergence requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media, assumptions that shape both programming and marketing decisions. If old consumers were assumed to be passive, new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you wanted them to stay, new consumers are migratory..." (Jenkins, 2006, pg. 18-19). This presents a dilemma within media companies who want to engage the public while at the same time want to control the message. This means that if the Betty Crocker company asks all of their fans on their Facebook page what their favorite recipe is, they should be prepared for some negative comments from people criticizing their company or just "trolling" to stir up controversy. This new convergence also means that companies are held more accountable by the public - if they make a mistake, that mistake is instantly broadcast across the internet and it damages the brand. For example, gamers on Reddit are often unhappy with the customer service support they receive from EA Games. Angry customers will react by posting screenshots of their interactions with EA customer service for millions of other Reddit users - and potential EA customers - to see. They often look something like this:

As a photo, this media is even more likely to spread. Images are actually the best way to spread your content - for monetary reasons. Facebook's secret internal formula for generating a newsfeed incorporates this concept. Zuckerberg won't reveal what algorithm Facebook uses to determine what posts show up on a newsfeed from which friends and why, but this factor (a user's likeliness of his particular kinds of posts appearing on particular friends' Facebook newsfeed) plays a large part in how far and fast the media is spread. But some media bloggers, through experimentation and tech-knowledge, have deciphered certain key elements. Namely, people have figured out that on Facebook, photos are the media that spread the most (Thor, 2011). Why pictures and not status updates, videos, or other content? It's simple: because when someone clicks on a picture, a new page opens up and with a new page comes new advertisements. Each time a Facebook user clicks a photo, two new ads are shown on the right side of the pop-up or the page. Thus, Facebook wants photos to spread faster and quicker so that they receive more clicks and generate more ad revenue. It's simple, and genius.

So this is why EA customers angry with their customer service experiences posting screenshots are dangerous to the company. Never before has customer dissatisfaction been so spreadable, and this could tarnish the company's reputation unless they recognize the power of social media communities and immediately make changes to fix their issues.

Social media offers companies some dangerous challenges as well as dangerous new information. Never before could corporations and campaigns access so much public data about a person. Users of social media are excited to post details about their lives on their profiles because they see it as a way of better connecting with friends, never considering that companies can easily data-mine for information about their age, sex, location, race, habits, preferred brands, political leanings, whether they own a pet, whether they go to church, etc. They get this information easily because users are willing to make it public, using hashtags, tags, and location-based posts to connect with others. Just by examining someone's Flickr photos you can determine where they were and what their social network circle may look like (van Dijck, 2010).

The Obama campaign capitalized on this idea when they launched the 2012 reelection campaign with a Facebook application (Mehta, 2011). In joining the application, you were allowed to post a badge in your feed telling all of your friends you supported Obama (and spreading the content, of course) but at the expense of opening your profile up to the campaign. Adding the app gave it access to all of the information on your profile, including your demographics as well as the pages you "liked," and helped the campaign categorize you based on these factors. Facebook user John Smith is a 22-year-old male white college student and political science major from New York who "likes" Greenpeace and Toms shoes -- he's probably a liberal and probably voted in the 2008 election. Great - so the Obama campaign can send him invites on Facebook to campaign events concerning environmentalism and youth activism in order to appeal to him best. Byrne recognizes this reality: "As the commercial stakes in online communities rise, so too will the interest in directing the participants, or controlling the format of interaction, to suit the profit-making agendas of corporate partners," (Byrne, 2008).

But social media isn't just for the companies: regular users can make it a means of branding themselves, and some have done so successfully enough to land jobs in their fields of interest. By using, for example, your twitter feed as a kind of newsblog, sharing articles, commenting on events or polls, and answering questions from others about a particular subject, you can become considered an expert in the field, regardless of any job you might hold in real life outside of the internet. (Or at the very least, you could get hired as a social media expert!) And in connecting with others who may be considered mini-celebrities in this particular field of interest, you're working to build an informative and engaging community.

A good example is Dave Stroup. Stroup is not a journalist. TBD describes him as "a player among the D.C. digerati but not a journalist," and admits "we're not exactly sure what he does;" nevertheless, the news site names him as one of the "51 Journalists with the most Klout." When Stroup tweeted last week that homeless man and local legend "Black Cat Bill" had died, though, everyone in the D.C. blogosphere and twittersphere believed him (Kearney, 2011). Popular sites DCist and WeLoveDC carried the news, and it even found its way to a Washington Post blog. However, it was soon discovered that "Black Cat Bill" was actually still alive, forcing all of these blogs to issue corrections. But the fact that Stroup, not a journalist, yet just as trusted in the D.C. news community, could report information that other sources took as fact without double-checking, is telling of the power of these intimate communities. Your twitter presence really does matter - sometimes it can even determine life and death. Personal branding can be a powerful tool, just as much as corporate branding.

So I take pride in the fact that my friends refer to me as "nikkimann17," and that people recognize me from Facebook. However small my community might be, I've obviously made an impact, one which can translate into life outside of the internet as well. It would be wonderful to become considered an "expert" in a subject area, but for now I am mostly the friend who provides people with all of their important news stories of the day through posts on Facebook and Twitter, and as a journalism major, informing the public is all I could ever want.







Bibliography:

Byrne, D. (2008.) "The future of "the" race: identity, discourse, and rise of computer-mediated public spheres." Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media. Edited by Anna Everett. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.

Jenkins, H. (2006.) Convergence Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Kearney, R. (2011, November 30.) "How Dave Stroup convinced the D.C. blogosphere that 'Black Cat Bill' was dead." TBD. Retrieved from http://www.tbd.com/articles/2011/11/how-dave-stroup-convinced-the-d-c-blogosphere-that-black-cat-bill-was-dead-69761.html

Mehta, S. (2011, April 18.) "The rise of the internet electorate." Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/18/nation/la-na-social-media-20110418

Thor, T. (2011, June 6.) How to get tons of clicks on Facebook ads: images. All Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.allfacebook.com/how-to-get-tons-of-clicks-on-facebook-ads-images-2011-06

van Dijck, J. (2010, October 18.) Flickr and the culture of connectivity: sharing views, experiences, memories. Sage Publications.

Brian Williams sets a bad example of fire safety

This isn't necessarily a journalistic mistake, but it's a broadcast flub that nine million viewers saw.

During the lede story of tonight's broadcast of NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams had to apologize as a fire alarm blared in the background at 30 Rock. Like a good anchor aware of the pressures of live tv, he continued through his script anyway, but one questions whether that was a good idea - if the fire had been real, he'd be in big trouble.

Here's the video of the incident (from mediaite):

AP reporter doesn't verify his sources

Today in Mistakes-To-Avoid-Learned-In-Journalism-101, we have the typical example of a reporter not verifying his sources before publishing false information. But this was no simple J School student. This was an AP reporter.

When a reporter for the AP heard a Christopher Walken impersonator on the radio, he thought the guy was real, and published a story about the fantastic claims he made. The lede read: "LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor Christopher Walken says he went to bed on a yacht he was on with actress Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner 30 years ago and awoke to learn that she had died."

None of that, of course, is true. Why this reporter never bothered to get a second source or check with his editors before publishing such an unfounded story is a question AP needs to answer.

This mistake comes at an interesting time, too. AP recently chastised its reporters for breaking news on Twitter before the wire can publish it -- the specific case involved journalists at Occupy Wall Street tweeting about being arrested before AP could get it. But TBD says that using Twitter to verify sources and claims could actually have benefited the reporter who published the Christopher Walken story, and I think it's a valid claim.

Herman Cain thinks journalists are being mean.

Herman Cain has been in the media all week long, defending himself from rumors of sexual misconduct after Politico broke the story about harassment settlements. I covered the ethics of Politico's story here. However, now the story has shifted and become an issue of Cain versus the media.

Recently Cain responded to reporters' questions about the allegations by stating "Don't even go there," and followed up with "Where's my chief of staff? Please send him the journalistic code of ethics." Cain is accusing the media of ganging up on him, picking on him unfairly because he's (a) conservative, (b) black, and (c) the front-runner. According to Cain, the big, bad liberal media are out to get him, and breaking ethical barriers to do so.

So, is the persistant questioning of Cain bad journalism? Cain wants reporters to re-read the code of ethics. Let's take a look at it.

Unfortunately for Cain, the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics mentions nothing relevant to the situation. In fact, it specifies that journalists should "Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection." As a candidate for president, Cain is a very public figure, and his conduct in prior offices or positions is just as much the public's business as are his policy proposals. In this case, the media has done nothing wrong in trying to get to the bottom of this story and expose a potential president for his character flaws. Chalk one up to the investigative media. Cain's whining about a biased and corrupt media out to get him are just plain wrong.

Politico's dirt on Cain: the Good and the Bad

Politico's monday story alleging a sexual harassment scandal involving Herman Cain has received a ton of media attention. I say kudos to Politico for some aspects of the story, but Politico clearly made mistakes on others. First, the good:

Politico, a news organization known for a culture valuing speed over accuracy, did not immediately publish the story. Politico waited ten days to give Cain a chance to respond to the allegation; the Cain campaign had no comment. Clearly thorough research and good timing paid off: the story turns out to be true, and Politico can take the credit.

Now, the bad:

Politico bases the entire scoop off of unnamed sources. Most reporters now know at least one of the sources' names, but regardless, the sources' relevance to the story is not generally known. It sounds suspicious and gives Cain ample room to deny it as an attack on conservatives.

This all being said, the Washington Post should also be criticized for the story it published on Monday covering Politico's story. Sure, proper attribution was given throughout the article, but actually the entire article simply restated information Politico had already published. Essentially, the journalist read the politico article, summarized it, and tried to pass it off as news. If a paper decides to write about a breaking news story, it should at the very least include some original reporting. This story has none.

WaPo editorial ridden with mistakes

I have a lot of respect for the Washington Post and the work it produces. But this editorial published yesterday sounds like it was written by a freshman journalism student at Georgetown.

The editorial board makes no effort to explain the issue - a rather controversial one - from either side. The entire argument seems to be something like this: "Georgetown is awesome! Our neighbors are ungrateful for our presence!"

Meanwhile, the valid arguments against Georgetown expansion from city officials and neighbors are completely absent from the editorial. Combine the one-sidedness of the editorial with mistakes of accuracy (Foxhollow is not a neighborhood; it's called Foxhall) and omission of words ("It will up to the zoning commission) and this article qualifies as poor journalism.

Ridiculous looking graphic in the Post

When you know a little something about newspaper page layout, you notice things like this and snicker. The Washington Post published a photograph of a Facebook page and centered it quite obnoxiously in the text. Frankly, the white space and lack of color looks horrible. If I wanted to look at a website, I'd be on WashingtonPost.com anyway. The page came out this way because the page editor demanded a graphic for the story to take up space and so that the page wouldn't look boring. I'd argue that the photo makes the page even more boring.

Although I have to admit that I do love what screenshots reveal about people (or media organizations). For instance, the Post still uses IE as its browser. (A little behind the times?) Even more revealing, the "photographer" of this lovely piece of art seemed to have come across the page through a google search. Again, what is this photograph telling us that we readers couldn't just google ourselves?