Social Media

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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Stop Ruining Pinterest for Everyone Who Loves It

by Marian Schembari on February 14, 2012

You know that obnoxious habit when you mention something new to a friend and they respond with “yeah, I heard about that ages ago” and you want to punch them in the mouth for being such a know-it-all? Well, everyone who’s been using Pinterest is starting to feel that way (re: we are the annoying know-it-all) now all the big marketing blogs are talking about it like they’ve discovered the Americas. (p.s. I’m not going to explain what Pinterest is. Go here if you want the details.)

Even though I work in marketing, I’m getting increasing frustrated at the industry’s new perspective of Pintrest…

  • Like this article that tells us “everything we need to know” but only actually tells us how to pimp your content to increase traffic.
  • Or this TechCrunch post that says Pinterest hasn’t yet reached its full potential because the audience is mostly women. (I wish I were kidding.)

And I’m not the only one. Pinterest lovers are annoyed because they’re all addicts. We’re all addicts. And I’m getting increasingly worried about sponsored pins, spam and generic crap being regurgitated into the webisphere.

That said, a) there’s nothing you nor I can do about it and b) there is opportunity because Pintrest is the best thing to happen to the internet since The Evolution of Dance. So I’m hoping with this post I can help the world use Pintrest for good instead of evil.

Here are some examples of companies on Pinterest, including what they do perfectly and who could use some work:

Modcloth

If Modcloth were a woman these boards would be everything she’d pin, making it as personal and personable as possible. It’s easily the best example of a brand on Pinterest.

Favorite Board: Behind the Stylebooks

Everyone loves a little behind-the-scenes, but Modcloth stands apart by showing what inspired their stylebooks, including typography, copy and vintage advertisements.

HGTV

A SparkNotes version of their website with awesome projects, design and food inspiration. While I’d usually consider this much HGTV content spammy, skimming through their projects in Pinterest-format is easier to digest.

Favorite Board: Mint Green: Color of the Month

This board gives you design ideas they might never have thought of under the umbrella of creative color.

The Travel Channel

What’s more inspirational than travel photos? The Travel Channel have organized their boards into different locations, with a few behind-the-scenes from their shows.

Favorite Board: Travel Finds

Travel Finds is a mash-up of inspirational travel quotes and nifty gadgets. It’s not too refined or particularly extensive, but that’s what I like about it.

Serious Eats

While the Serious Eats account is filled with gorgeous photos and dish ideas, they could do an even better job if they created other food-related boards like kitchen gadgets, restaurants, reviews and products they love.

Favorite Board: Booze-free drinks

Serious Eats organizes their boards  just like a cookbook! They have boards like Pasta and Noodles, Mexican, and Cocktails, as well as boards for events like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s.

Kikki.k

Again, too product heavy, but stationery company Kikki.k does a decent job showing products in action. Their board featuring gorgeous workspaces makes me want to run right out and buy all their products. Nicely played, Kikki.k. Mission accomplished.

Favorite Board: Journal Prompts

Based off Kikki.k’s popular journals, this board features writing prompts. I love the concept, but the photos aren’t sexy enough to get much traction. If they really wanted to get some attention, they should use a kick ass graphic designer to mock up the prompts with some simple and unique typography.

So how do you use Pinterest without ruining it for those who adore it?

First of all, don’t jump on the bandwagon just because Mashable tells you to.

The one thing keeping me sane about the Pinterest explosion is that if you start spamming people or your content isn’t pretty enough, you’ll never getting your stuff repinned. Meaning right now (for now) its hard to game the system.

So since the site is mostly used for inspiration, if you have a blog about blogging you might be shit out luck. While I might create a board for my travels or the books I’ve read just to test it out, if you ever catch me trying to pimp my content you have my full permission to take me out back and shoot me.

What do you think, are your panties in a knot over brands finally discovering Pinterest? Have you ever even heard of it before? Could you care less?

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5 (More) Examples of Absurdly Well-Written Twitter Bios

by Marian Schembari on January 16, 2012

It’s shocking how rarely I come across a Twitter bio that inspires me. Most are blank, bland, irrelevant or say almost verbatim what I’ve seen a million other times on the interwebs. But sometimes I come across bios that are snappy, witty, laugh out loud funny and make me immediately want to follow said tweeter (and be their Bestie 4 Life).

Like these five…

I clearly have a thing for writers, but they obviously know how to clearly and cleverly talk about themselves. The bio of @akharlamova just so perfectly describes the life of an author in so few words. And it also does a great job showing that she’s dedicated, consumed and in love with what she does. Nicely done, Arina.

It would have been so easy for @showmethesun to have written, “Book lover. Works in Publishing. From Melbourne.” Instead, she eats books for breakfast! She’s a curator instead of just a blogger. She doesn’t just work in publishing, she loves it. She doesn’t just live in Melbourne, she’s happy there. I feel like I know her already.

I love it when a major corporation isn’t afraid to add a little humor in their bio. What @Staples does is genius in that they quickly sum up what they do, then tap into the joys of every office worker on the planet. Like starch.

@KatjaPresnal clearly has a lot going for her. She tells us why she’s great, what she’s up to, what she does for living, then throws her personality at us in full force. This is a girl I could be friends with. And “carpe the shit out of diem” obviously needs to be my life motto. (Thanks to @aodt for sending this bio my way!)

I’m in love with @IsaChandra and think her loud and clear voice on this bio coupled with such simplicity is pretty unique. Sometimes (aka “all the time”) you just don’t need to over-explain. For Isa, four words is all she needs. I like her style and for those of you who eat more than just meat and potatoes can also appreciate her location quip.

Takeaways

1. A few choice words can make all the difference. Take a page out of Steph’s half-eaten book (see what I did there? I crack myself up) and stay away from over-used descriptions when talking about yourself.

2. What’s a really obvious stereotype about your industry/job/passion? Are you an accountant? Poke fun at the fact that you’re not absurdly boring. Social media strategist? Mention you’re sure as hell not a guru/ninja. Make like Staples and stand out from the crowd by being good-natured about the judgments surrounding what you do.

3. Do you have a specific writing style? Do you swear a lot? Have a rad vocabulary skills? Write poetry? Translate that strong style à la Isa Chandra so that voice shines in your bio!

Want more Twitter love? Read parts 1 and 2 here. And if you’ve seen any great bios lately, please share them in the comments!

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