Monthly Archives: August 2012

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12 Reasons Social Media Is Bullsh*t [contains profanity]

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Social media will solve all of your problems. Eliminate everyone else in your company and focus only on social media. It’s social media or die.

Gotcha. Just jokes.

Social Media is Bullsh*t, a new book by Brandon (B.J.) Mendelson is a critique set on dubunking the myths of social media. He’s calling shenanigans on those who think of “social media as the second coming.” By looking at some of the most popular case studies in recent time, he offers opinions and revelations (and specifically calls people out) on what truly made them successful.

While calling B.S. on the social media industry, B.J. wants to make his own mark by offering the “real tools” needed to connect with customers. Yes, he’s selling something, too, and part of it is a fresh perspective.

A few of the things he calls B.S. on from a recent interview with Short Form Blog:

  • 800 Million — The number of Facebook users. He says it’s a misleading number because it doesn’t account for those with multiple accounts.
  • Google and journalism. He says they ruin everything.
  • Almost everything found in current day marketing books is a ripoff of “How To Win Friends And Influence People”.

B.J. shared these 12 reasons why social media is B.S. for Faves readers:

 

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FAVE QUICK TIP: Create a verbal-friendly short URL

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Have you ever had to verbally tell someone a really long URL? It’s like a game of telephone and you never know how it might turn out.

Based on that frustration, ShoutKey was developed as a temporary url shortener that gives you a randomly chosen English word as the key for your URL.

Instead of telling someone to visit page shortURL.com/dkfjewkl4329 you now have something like shoutkey.com/cast (example above).

Worried about getting Rickrolled? You can preview any trigger word to see where it leads from the “Preview” function.

Each Shoutkey has a temporary timeframe associated with the URL and word key. You can select from as little as five minutes and up to 24 hours for the link to be live.

Work better, not more.

Fave Social Media Fave tools

FAVE TOOL: New startpage for journalists combines social feeds, pitch preference and portfolio of work

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If you’re a journalist currently using tools like Rebel Mouse or About.me to aggregate your online profile, you’re missing an opportunity to include your work. That’s why Muck Rack launched a new tool that allows journalists to both share their social info and a portfolio of their best work.

Not only can journalists share their best work, but there’s a perk for public relations professionals; journalists can specify what they cover and what they don’t cover. In addition to the portfolio, journalists may choose to feature their social media accounts, awards they’ve won and a personal Muck Rack Interview.

You can include the link to your personal page in:

  • Your email signature so people pitching you can view it
  • Your blog or website under the “about” section
  • Your company’s website and/or blog (You could link to all journalists at your outlet as well.)

 

What do they look at? Check out two of my favorites, below.

Here is NPR’s Andy Carvin’s page:

 

And Huffington Post’s Craig Kanalley’s page:

Want to create your own? You must have a Muck Rack journalist account in order to create the page. You can sign up here.

Fave Research Fave Social Media Fave [INFOGRAPHICS]

FAVE INFOGRAPHIC: The 12 things high performing employees do before noon each day

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From Business Insider’s article, 12 Tasks That Killer Employees Always Finish Before Noon, based on the American Psychological Association journal’s study, Emotion, I give you my visual interpretation:

Are you a high performing employee?

Want to embed this graphic on your blog? Go for it.

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Data shows that Call Me Maybe parodies are more popular than the original

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Is the future of music staring us in the face? Huge hit plus parodies equals the big cheddar. Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” is undoubtedly the song of the summer, but it’s the parodies of the popular song that pushed it even further.


It’s nice to have friends with great data. The folks at Brandwatch recently shared research on Call Me Maybe and the most popular parodies of the song with me. They tracked the original song and the parodies from May 1, 2012 through August 16, 2012. Most interesting? The parodies of the song have actually had more total views than the song itself.

As a whole, 59 percent of the online conversation (including views) were of the viral parodies versus 41 percent about the original song. The most popular parody on its own was the Barack Obama version with 12 percent of all views and mentions.

Looking at the data shows that each time a new popular parody was released the original song also saw a boost in views and mentions. The original song is the brown line and, as you can see, gets a bump each time a new parody is released.

Looking at overall video views, here’s how the most popular parodies breakdown:

  • Original – 203 MM
  • Bieber – 48 MM
  • Barack Obama – 23 MM
  • Chat Roulette – 16 MM
  • Harvard Baseball – 15 MM
  • Miami Dolphins – 11 MM
  • Swim Team – 6.8 MM
  • Jimmy Fallon – 8 MM
  • Star Wars – 5.7 MM

What is your fave Call Me Maybe parody? Share in the comments or with a tweet. Just tag #sarahsfaves.

Questions about the data? Go ahead and email jim.reynolds@brandwatch[.]com.