Social Media

One Awesome Kickstarter Campaign

by Marian Schembari on April 28, 2012

One of my best friends ever, Thana, launched her first Kickstarter campaign last week. She’s one rockin’ songstress and I’ve heard this girl sing her little heart out since she was ten years old. And now? She’s about to record her first album.

Today, she reached 50% of her funding goal. And I want to help get her the rest of the way there.

Not only would her record be a great gift to the world (I’ve already heard one of her songs, Ghost Hawk, which was written for her late brother, Niki), but she’s compiled some of the most creative, generous gifts for her backers. She’s offering up everything from a private concert to drum lessons with the great Antonio Sanchez. It’s one of the best Kickstarter campaigns I’ve ever seen and it’s clear she’s put her heart and soul into the project.

So do the world a favor! Give a little love to Thana here on Kickstarter. Both she and I would be enormously grateful.

 

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Lessons from KONY 2012 (and a message from Ryan Gosling)

by Marian Schembari on March 20, 2012

I was a little late jumping on the Kony bandwagon. Mostly because a 30-minute YouTube video is my idea of torture, but also because, even if you make your living attempting to understand and abuse social media, it’s surprisingly easy to let things fall through the cracks.

When I finally did sit down to watch the video, I felt a little bit of everything: inspired, judgmental, exhausted, motivated and skeptical.

In case you, like me, live under a rock, “KONY 2012 is an international campaign by Invisible Children, aiming to bring Joseph Kony to justice.”

(Joseph Kony is the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and is riling everyone up for his abduction of children to turn them into child soldier and sex slaves.)

The director of the KONY 2012 film, Jason Russell, managed to get 83 million video views (and counting – when I watched on Friday it was at 79 million views).

The purpose of his movie was to get as many people talking about Kony as possible. That one of the biggest problems was that no one knew or cared about the man.

Russell – clearly – succeeded. What he’s done has been nothing short of incredible. While I’m still in shock that so many people sat through a half-hour YouTube video, Russell’s efforts to get as many people sharing the video as possible paid off.

If you go to the KONY 2012 website, he’s made it as easy as possible to share everything about the campaign. My personal favorite part is his attempts to get us contacting “culturemakers” and “policymakers”.

This post isn’t about the campaign though. It’s about controlling social media. Something I think Russell and Invisible Children has done an extraordinary job of doing. By creating a powerful video that was shared by celebrities and everyday folks alike, the KONY video is the most viral video of all time and has been trending on Twitter for well over a week.

On April 20th, the video tells us, we’re supposed to paper the world with images of Kony, further spreading the knowledge of this man’s atrocities.

I’m waiting with bated breath to see if it happens the way the video presents – young and old alike spending the darkest hours of the night covering cities with posters, banners and messages. I can’t lie. It’s a hugely powerful idea – that a video, powered by social media, can incite real-world action. It makes my heart tingle.

Here’s where it gets interesting though… as powerful as this whole idea is, I fear Russell is now getting more than he bargained for.

Just the other day, Russell was arrested for public masturbation.

And thus, #horny2012 was born.

It’s sad. And also a little bit hilarious. Don’t judge me.

Point being, as much as I admire Russell for taking social media by the reigns, I very strongly believe you CANNOT control social. You can nudge something into going viral. You can make a difference. But once it’s gone viral, it’s actually gone. It’s out of your hands.

A Message from Ryan Gosling

For those of you not in New Zealand, this next story is going to seem really, really weird. And yes, I live in a very odd (but enormously endearing) country.

Last week, an Auckland store tweeted that Ryan Gosling (*le sigh*) had just been in their shop.

Now, no one comes to New Zealand. We’ll occasionally get a celebrity here on location or a musician on tour. And when they do come, it’s a big.freaking.deal. The country goes ape-shit. Everyone wants to know what said celebrity thinks about New Zealand. Even Kiwi celebrities – people who have become famous outside of New Zealand like Flight of the Concords, rarely come back and when THEY do it’s like a national freaking holiday.

Point being, Auckland went crazy. One mistaken sighting resulted in #NZGoslingHunt trending across the entire country. People tweeted photos with Gosling superimposed into images of the city. I also read some of the funniest tweets of my life on the fake-locations of the super-sexy-superstar.

It also brought into my life my new favorite blog, Hey Girl, I Love New Zealand, which is a collection of “Hey girl” pictures targeted at weird Kiwi-isms that only 4 million Kiwis (and the people who love them) actually understand. Because, well, why the hell not?

What does this have to do with a Ugandan child-abductor? The fact that nothing and no one can control what ends up going crazy on the Twitters. One simple tweet about Ryan Gosling and for days Auckland women had their panties in actual braids. Not because anyone here necessarily believed he was in Auckland (like I said – no one comes to Auckland), but because everyone wants to be a part of the trend.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a gorgeous, blond, celebrity who looks like Jesus with his shirt off or a Ugandan war lord. Twitter doesn’t give a crap

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How to make your job hunt so easy, you don’t even have to think about it

by Marian Schembari on March 7, 2012

This is a guest post from Emma Cunningham, who knows how much I love a good social media success story. Read below for the ins and outs of how she landed not one, but two great roles using online networking. Booyah!

I knew I wanted to work in digital publishing within days of starting my post-grad certificate in publishing. I love the rapid pace, the constant feel of “shiny and new”, and the small-world atmosphere.

My goal was a job at romance publisher Harlequin, so I followed their Twitter feed, as well as the personal feeds of some of their digital employees. I did a little freelance work for them. After graduation, I chatted up the assistant manager of digital content and social media, Amy Wilkins. Our coffee date was supposed to be a chance for me to pick her brain, but it turned into a recommendation for a six-month contract as a Production Coordinator on their digital content team.

Around the five-month mark, my contract was renewed for another seven months. Shortly after the extension offer, I got pregnant. I knew I wanted to stay home with my baby until she starts school, so I planned on seeking out freelance work once I finished my year of maternity leave.

I decided to ask for LinkedIn recommendations before my last day to make sure people had my work fresh in their minds. A lot of people use LinkedIn to post their resumes, but many are nervous about asking for recommendations. They don’t want to impose on their colleagues or call in favours. I can tell you, though, from personal experience, that making that request was one of the smartest career moves I’ve ever made.

Within moments of asking Croco Designs’ Creative Director Frauke Spanuth – who does cover art for some of Harlequin’s digital imprints and websites for several of their authors – she wrote back asking if I wanted a remote position with flexible hours as the Content and Social Media Manager at Croco Designs.

Frauke was looking for a native English speaker who was familiar with the romance and genre fiction markets, and had digital PR experience. She’d communicated with me enough via e-mail to have a sense that I could be a good fit personality-wise, and she’d seen my various social media platforms which gave her an idea of my areas of expertise and skillset.

“I didn’t even have to think about my job hunt”

I didn’t even have to think about going on a job hunt. The offer came months before I even went on maternity leave. All it took was a strong online presence and the guts to ask for that LinkedIn referral. Now I work with authors to keep the copy on their websites fresh, entertaining, and search-engine friendly. I also help them build up their Twitter, Facebook and blogging skills. Best of all, I get to work with NYT bestselling authors, fresh new debut authors, and everyone in between—all from my laptop in the living room. Getting a job this perfect was almost too easy.

Networking has always been the best way to score your dream job. All that’s changed is that it’s now a hundred times easier to schmooze with your future boss.

Emma Cunningham is an ebook geek, digital marketer and publicist, and avid reader. She currently acts as the Content & Social Media Manager for Croco Designs, helping authors develop their online content for maximum impact. Her blog helps authors navigate the complex worlds of publishing and platforms.

Note from Marian: Do you have a cool story about how social media saved your bacon? Shoot me an email by clicking here and tell me all about it. I’d love to feature you on the blog.

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What Actually Happens When a Celebrity Retweets You

by Marian Schembari on February 23, 2012

Okay. Whew! That was interesting.

Let’s just jump right into it, shall we?

First, this happened: I wrote a post about Stephen Fry and the broadband issues in New Zealand.

Then, this happened: Stephen Fry saw the post, READ IT (God bless that beautiful man) and retweeted it out to his followers. (Then had the gentlemenly quality to thank me.)

Because of that, this happened:

Yes. You read that correctly. That would be over 70,000 clicks in 24 hours.

But because that happened, this happened:

Gotta love, Bluehost, huh?

I almost started hyperventilating. Every blogger dreams of getting their writing found – to have something go at least a little viral. Well, not only did things NOT go as planned (hellllo Database Error!) but I had no idea this would be the post that finally “made it”. I wrote it on a whim at midnight because I was so infuriated by New Zealand’s reaction to Fry’s tweets about our broadband. It wasn’t – how shall we say – the nicest, most non-stereotypically American post I’ve ever written.

Thankfully, reader response was surprisingly positive. I was impressed at the lack of trolls and angry Kiwis. It was pretty awesome seeing so many people agree with what I thought was a privileged-American-girl (or British celebrity) problem.

An since most of you regular readers are also bloggers, I thought I’d take you through a tour of this blog’s undercarriage so you can see exactly what goes down when something so stunning happens.

Exactly What Happens When an Actor with 4 Million Twitter Followers Shares Your Post

Number one: Clicks. Obviously. Lots of them. As of right now there are 295 retweets and counting. The majority of clicks obviously came from Fry’s 4 million followers, and this totaled to around 70,000 clicks on the first day.

Number two: Traffic. Unfortunately, my site crashed (or, as the internets like to call it, my site got “Fryed”). My host was in no way prepared for the influx of traffic and my site continues to have issues and keeps crashing on me. On the first day I received 13,238 visitors. The second day, 15,497. See below for a screenshot of my Analytics. The 300-700 views per day I was getting before? Insignificant compared to what Fry did in seconds.

Number three: Revenue. (Sort of.) I made a whopping $18.06 from Adsense during the past two days. For someone who averages out around $0.20 on a good day, $18 is pretty damn impressive. Now what shall I spend it on…?

Number four: Subscribers. Even with tens of thousands of new visitors, my subscribers only went up by 31. Because people tend to subscribe only when they’ve been to a blog a few times, I’m not hugely surprised, but it’s definitely an interesting non-development.

Number five: Twitter followers. I received 127 new followers in the past two days. It usually takes about 1-2 weeks for me to accumulate that much “organically”.

Number six: Klout. My score went up by eleven points after Fry shared the post.

What They Don’t Tell You

It’s been pretty cool to see all my traffic and stats go up. HOWEVER. The bounce rate on my site is now beyond high. time spent has decreased by over a minute so it’s now it’s at an average (average!) of 30 seconds. Clearly I’m not immediately impressing people with my charm and dashing good looks.

Basically, it was a nice bump in traffic that’s done wonders for my ego, but the lesson here is that just because you get mentioned by an “a-lister” (or Stephen-fucking-Fry in this case) doesn’t mean it will help your site long term.

There’s no real moral to this story other than: here’s a look into what really happens when someone awesome links to you. Pretty interesting, huh?

p.s. Mr Stephen Fry, you’re my new hero. A hat tip to you, kind sir.

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Fry Trashes New Zealand Broadband. Schembari Says ‘HELL YEAH’.

by Marian Schembari on February 20, 2012

Ever since arriving in New Zealand I’ve been developing this chip on my shoulder about the internet. When I first arrived I had been freelancing, which meant spending a lot of time out of the house working at coffee shops and libraries.

Not in New Zealand.

I quickly discovered coffee shops here don’t have free wifi, but the general internet is total crap. Not only slow, but expensive. And dysfunctional anywhere outside cities. And, oh, wait, LIMITED.

What is limited internet?

At the risk of sounding like a first-world whiner (which, let’s face it, the majority of this post is going to be just that), I had no idea what limited broadband meant until moving here.

Essentially it means you can only pay for and use a certain amount of data. Activities like checking email don’t eat much. Updating software, using Skype, watching YouTube videos, uploading photos…. those do.

In New Zealand, that data costs a lot. For $200/month living with five people we received 20GB of data each. In New York, my roommate and I paid $22 total for unlimited internet. You do the math.

Broadband Issues Bad for New Zealand’s Economy

I’m currently working for a start-up in a young industry. I meet a lot of professionals and entrepreneurs who are invested in New Zealand’s growth as part of the global economy. Over the past year I’ve been to many conferences on that very topic – a major event at the University of Auckland Business School, a digital conference run by MSN, a program hosted by Google…

Want to know what all these events had in common?

None of them had wifi.

Someone please explain how you can attend a conference for digital professionals about the growth of New Zealand’s international economy AND NOT HAVE THE FUCKING INTERNET.

But wait! It gets better…

Enter: Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry, master of all that is humorous and national treasure of England, is in New Zealand. And I was giddy with joy when my 15-month-long annoyances were justified when I saw this tweet:

The full story is, apparently, Fry was doing lots of “high-bandwidth activities” like uploading photos/videos. He went over the limit and Telecom slowed his speed to dial-up, which is what happens here if you exceed your limit.

(As someone who does this every month, I can assure you it’s quite the treat.)

What shocked me though were the tweets following Fry’s rant. New Zealanders are a defensive bunch and even if everyone here hates the limits, there was no way in hell they would allow an outsider to insult their country.

One guy tweeted that, well, “maybe internet is slow here but at least it stops people from tweeting too much” (!). Another called Fry an asshole. And, of course, many brought out The Earthquake Card, saying Kiwis who have internet “should be thankful for what they have.”

NZ publications and even the damn government is responding to this issue all wrong. They’re responding as if Fry has had an out-of-the-ordinary experience. I can assure you, he hasn’t. Fry’s issue is representative of a bigger problem in New Zealand.

Dear NZ, You’re 10 Years Behind. Again.

Fry later posted a series of tweets that have made me fall in love with him even more. He said (edited for clarity), “Comcast-style throttling is disastrous for the economy. For visitors and for everyone. It won’t stop illegal torrenting and makes as much sense as closing a lane of traffic because there’s congestion. Yes, Kiwi Land is remote, but if Avatar can be made here and they want to keep its reputation for being the loveable, easy-going, outdoorsy yet tech savvy place it is, then pressure @telecomNZ into offering better packages. Kiwis travel. They know 20MB is routine in Europe and the UK is rolling out ultra fast fibre-optic. Come on, New Zealand, you’re world champions at rugby and film-making. Pressure the providers to stop being a digital embarrassment.”

This has nothing to do with Fry going over the data cap. Or choosing the wrong provider. There is no other provider. There are no real competitors to Telecom. It’s called a monopoly. And it’s not okay.

And, to clarify, most first world countries don’t have data caps. As per usual, New Zealand is about ten years behind. In the words of one commenter, its policies are “primitive.” One traveler even said that as much as he loved it here, the broadband limitations means he “could never work or live here permanently.”

So BRAVO, Stephen Fry. B-R-A-V-O.

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