New Technology Assingment

               The new technology that I believe will affect social media immensely in the future is virtual reality. I was reading an ARTICLE by Mark Schaefer when I came across this idea of virtual reality being merged with social media and creating something called virtual spaces. This ARTICLE describes these virtual spaces as places where people can create their own avatars and interact with other people’s avatars wherever they want to be. Basically, people can create a better life than what they actually have in their virtual space and escape their normal lives into an amazing world of their own. They can meet people in these worlds and develop relationships through this virtual reality technology.

               When I heard about these virtual spaces I immediately thought about the movie “Ready PlayerOne” that is now playing in theaters. When I saw the previews for the movie it seemed so far-fetched, but what’s crazy is that after reading about virtual spaces, it doesn’t seem so unrealistic. The movie is basically about a boy who transports out of his normal life into a video game that is virtual reality. He has his own avatar and interacts with other people’s avatars. I haven’t seen the movie, but it would be interesting to see the difference between his actual reality and his virtual reality within the movie.

               The reason that I say that it would be interesting to see the difference between his actual and virtual realities is because Mike Elgan predicts that these virtual spaces will be “the most addictive experience ever introduced.” The reason he says this is because when people aren’t happy with their lives they can just transform themselves into another life and live that life instead. It isn’t hard to see why that would be addictive if you weren’t fully satisfied with your actual reality.

               Elgan also predicts that these virtual spaces will be both a good and a bad thing, just like all other social media. Like other forms of social media, Elgan says it will bring people together in the virtual reality but will further isolate us in the real world. I personally think that these virtual spaces sound really cool, but I think that overall they would have a negative effect. I think that giving people that space to create a different life, will just make them less satisfied with their real lives. What people need to do is focus on making their actual life a better one, not their life on social media or their life in a virtual space.

Reflection on Social Media Case 12: United Breaks Guitars

               Honestly, the more cases that we study like this the more I wonder why companies don’t just put the customer first. Anyone can post their bad experiences with a company on social media, and that’s exactly what Dave Carroll did when United Airlines mishandled his guitar. Except Dave Carroll made a whole song and music video about the incident, which received 18 million views. However, he tried to get United to remedy the situation for a year, and when nothing was done he made the video. So United Airlines definitely had it coming.

               United not handling this simple problem caused them a much bigger problem which caused them bad publicity and a loss of revenue. Just a simple search on Google of the song title “United Breaks Guitars” brings up many different news articles on the whole situation. One of the articles that comes up is from FAST COMPANY and they quote The Times of London, saying that the bad PR cost United 180 million dollars from the plunge in the stock market. Although there’s no proof that that price is entirely accurate, I’m sure it did cost them way more than it would have if they would have just addressed the problem in the beginning.

               Dave Carroll even wrote a book on the whole situation which you can find on AMAZON. His book is titled “United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media.” I think that the title of this book says it all. One voice really does have so much power on social media and it’s not just the voices of people with power and money, but the voices of normal everyday people. This is why it is so important that companies provide their customers with good customer service, because any of their customers could be that one voice that shares their bad experience, causing the company more problems than it had initially.

Reflection on Social Media Case 11: OK Go Gravity Song

My initial thoughts after reading about this social media case is why there are so many people reporting on OK Go choosing Facebook to release their newest music video “Upside Down & Inside Out” rather than YouTube. It seemed to be a really big deal to a lot of people and I honestly didn’t really see it as such a big deal. However, Facebook and YouTube did seem to be in competition with their video services with Facebook trying to prove that videos posted on their site can go just as viral as those posted on YouTube. HERE is an article on one way that Facebook is trying to compete with YouTube.

               I definitely think money was involved in OK Go’s decision to post this video on Facebook rather than YouTube, even thought they said it was for creative purposes. I also think that views were involved as well. Apparently, when this whole incident happened, you couldn’t share the link to YouTube videos and so there was less of a reach. However, with Facebook, people could literally share the video to their feeds, which would result in more views, making the video more viral. HERE is more information as to why OK Go chose Facebook to release their video.

               What is very interesting to me is that the company that they worked with to make this video, S7 Airlines, posted the video to YouTube and OK Go got upset about it, resulting in the video being taken down. There were no legal actions taken, but later OK Go actually ended up posting the video to their YouTube page after the initial release on Facebook. This makes me wonder if OK Go actually did have some negative feelings towards YouTube, which was mentioned briefly in some articles that I read about the whole issue.

Reflection on Social Media Case 10: Miracle Mattress Twin Tower Sale

 The ‘Twin Tower Sale’ commercial was created by Miracle Mattress and was overall very tasteless and just plain wrong. The 15^th anniversary of 9/11 was soon approaching and it’s obvious that Miracle Mattress was trying to use this event as a promotional deal on their social media. The whole video is very disturbing and you can find it HERE. This video went viral and the company received a lot of backlash, but it’s pretty clear why it did.

So many people were in the wrong, and it makes me wonder why no one thought that just maybe it might be offensive and probably isn’t a good idea. It will definitely take a lot of work on the company’s behalf to recover from this commercial that has gone viral. So many people have made comments on their Facebook page about how disgusted they are with the whole thing. Some people were forgiving, but the majority of comments are how disgusted people are with the people who made this video. There were even people saying how much they hope that they go out of business for it.

Mike Bonanno, the owner of Miracle Mattress, wrote an APOLOGY LETTER addressed to all of the victims and families of 9/11. I think that the letter was written very well and was a crucial step to recovering from this incident. However, the letter isn’t enough to make up for the wrong thing they have done, which he states within the letter.  

Miracle Mattress closed their doors after the whole event happened, and I’m sure during this time they went over many different policies and things the company could do to regain a positive reputation. However, even with the apology letter and the different things the company has tried to do to regain their reputation, what’s on social media will always be on social media. They are still getting bad reviews today because of the whole incident that happened years ago, which goes to show how hard it is to recover from something like this, especially in the age of social media.

Reflection on Social Media Case 9: Ponderize

               This case is very difficult to understand for me personally because there a lot of factors that go into it. This is about an LDS General Authority, Elder Durrant, who spoke in general conference on “ponderizing”, which is pondering the scriptures and memorizing a verse from the scriptures. I thought that the whole “ponderize” term is very clever, and apparently Elder Durrant’s son thought that it was clever too, so much that he created a website where you could buy merchandise that had “ponderize” on it, as well as a Facebook page on the subject.

After this website and Facebook page were created, there was a lot of backlash from people who were suspicious and saw the whole thing as a way for them to make money for personal gain. After this happened, his son made a post that said that all profits would go to a missionary fund. This only caused people to be more suspicious, questioning why that wasn’t said in the first place. The fact that the statement was only made after the backlash also makes me question if all profits really were intended to go to the missionary fund. You can read more about the whole scandal HERE as well as what was done by Elder Durrant to address the issue.

This whole social media case is just another example of how fast something can spread on social media and how fast there can be negative reactions if you aren’t careful. Things like this happen all the time on social media and this article from CNN presents many different incidents of it happening with celebrities. Overall, this can be a lesson for everyone to always think of what can happen in result of whatever you post on social media for everyone to see. The fact that everyone can see it, and not everyone will think of it as a positive thing, should always be in the back of your mind.

Reflection on Social Media Case 8: Pastor's 10% to God

 

This social media case is about a pastor who ate at Applebee’s with a group of friends and when it came time to pay the bill, the computer automatically added an 18% gratuity tip because it’s Applebee’s policy. Pastor Bell apparently didn’t agree with this because on the receipt she wrote “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18.” I also found it interesting that she crossed out the automatic 18% and wrote 0 in the blank space for a tip. One of the serves saw the receipt and posted a picture of it on Reddit. Supposedly this server got fired, but what I want to focus on within this case is whose reputation was damaged more.

I personally think that the pastor’s reputation was damaged more, but that the server and Applebee’s got more negative repercussions. Posting confidential information can be super damaging to your companies reputation, and can result in the employee that posted it getting fired, like it did in this situation. You can read more about how companies can get their reputation damaged HERE. I don’t think that this particular situation was damaging to Applebee’s reputation, but I do think that it may have been damaging to the employees reputation. However, I think that the pastor’s reputation was ruined the most.

What this pastor wrote on the receipt is distasteful, but what I think is most damaging to the pastor’s reputation is the fact that she didn’t even want to leave a tip. This is just wrong and a tip should always be left for the server. If the pastor didn’t want the whole world seeing what she did then she probably should have thought of that before she did it. Here is a link to a letter from a restaurant worker on why you should always tip at least 15%.

Reflection on Social Media Case 7: Anthony Weiner's Post

           The Anthony Weiner case is a perfect example of how someone’s reputation can be ruined through social media, especially when they deny the truth. Anthony Weiner was a U.S. Congressman who was accused of sexting. He initially denied the accusation, but because it was on social media, news stories dug deeper into the case and he eventually admitted that the accusations were true. His reputation was ruined, which is obvious when you do a Google search on his name. Most all of the top search results are about the whole scandal and there is even a whole Wikipedia page devoted to his sexting scandals. I can’t help but wonder if the negative effects on him would have been lessened if he would have admitted to the whole thing in the beginning, rather than lying about it.

               There are definitely many things that can be learned from Anthony Weiner, such as admitting to something that you did, especially if it is being talked about on social media. This is especially important if you are a political figure being as you are constantly being watched by the public. Anthony Weiner brought “degradation upon himself” according to The New York Times. I believe that part of this self-inflicted degradation was the fact that he didn’t admit to everything that he had done until it was too late, and of course, the fact that he sexted multiple women, including an under-age girl is the main cause of this degradation. Although I do wonder if the effects would have been lessened if he admitted his faults earlier, I don’t believe that he would have gotten away with the sexting. He would have had to face criticism and many other things, but I don’t think it would have been as bad as it was. Lying and hiding things will only make matters worse, no matter who you are.

Reflection on Social Media Case 6: Basketball Cop

I remember hearing about this story and seeing the videos when it happened. It inspired me then and it still inspires me now. I think it’s awesome that Officer White did what he did, and all of the viral videos and campaigns that resulted from his actions are awesome as well. He understood the “damaged relationship” between cops and youth and wanted to fix that, and help youth be more trusting of cops. I can’t help but think how amazing it would be if all cops were more like Officer White. However, I’m sure that his actions not only inspired everyday citizens of America, but a lot of cops as well. If you somehow missed this story when it happened, SlamOnline does a good job of describing what happened.

I think it’s important to note the positivity of this story and how fast and wide it spread on social media. I like what the police department’s social media manager, Officer Tobias said about his intentions of uploading the video. He said that he wanted to show the Gainesville residents that “… you may see stuff on national news about how bad police are, but this is what we do.” The news is always reporting on negative things, which includes the negative things that cops do. I think that it was so important for this positive interaction between a cop and the youth to spread across social media so that people can see that cops aren’t all bad, like the news tries to portray.

The news does report on bad things that happen the majority of the time and this blog talks about why that is, providing an example of what happened when a news source reported only good news. I think that this is an example as to why social media should be used for good. I’ve always been an optimist and although it is important to keep people informed on bad things that happen (because it can provoke change, and keep people safe) it’s important to talk about the good going on in the world so we don’t become overwhelmed with all the negative.

Online Reputation

I was assigned to find out more about Tyler Fisher’s online reputation by searching him on different social media sites. He has a social media presence but seems to be pretty low-key with what he posts. From what I was able to find, he has a good online reputation, with nothing negative to be found.

Both his Facebook and LinkedIn accounts make it clear that he grew up in Pleasanton, California and graduated from Amador Valley High in 2013.  He then attended BYU Idaho where he studied exercise physiology, according to his Facebook. He is now attending Utah State and seems to have a lot of school spirit as you can tell from some of his tweets and retweets on Twitter, as well as some of his posts onFacebook. He also seems to really like sports, especially football, being as most of his retweets on Twitter have do with football. I also found that he liked the San Francisco Giants on Facebook, which makes me assume that he also likes baseball. These were all of the things that I was able to find consistently across his social media.

As you can tell, I wasn’t able to find much that I was sure of being as only a few things were consistent across his different social media platforms. However, I did find some other interesting things on his Facebookpage. One of these things was that he worked at a cabana club in Pleasanton, CA as a lifeguard and a swim instructor. This leads me to assume that he is good at swimming, has spent a lot of time in the water, and has maybe even saved a life. He also has multiple pictures of him shooting guns on his Facebook, which leads me to believe that one of his hobbies is shooting.

Tyler’s LinkedIn profile also pointed to some things that weren’t on his other social media. Like the fact that he works at BestBuy and has done a photography production internship for Blue SoHo. He has worked at BestBuy for a little over two years as a customer service specialist, which shows that he has had experience with customer service. His internship leads me to think that he enjoys photography and marketing. His LinkedIn bio also says a lot about him and shows that he enjoys communicating with people and spending time outdoors.  It also seems like he is very good with technology judging from his bio.

Overall, Tyler seems like a down-to-earth guy that enjoys spending time outdoors in his free time, specifically shooting guns. He also seems to enjoy watching sports in his free time. He also seems to really enjoy going to school here at Utah State and seems to have a lot of school spirit. I think it’s pretty cool that he grew up in California and came to Utah to get his college education. He has a social media presence, but doesn’t seem to spend much time on it being as he doesn’t have many recent posts, besides the Twitter posts from our class.

Reflection on Social Media Case 5: PayPal Deleted Comments

What happens when companies delete comments on their posts on Facebook? Well this is exactly what PayPal did. They had made a post about their company being featured on Forbes and people started commenting negative comments, many of which had to do with an incident that occurred between PayPal and Regretsy.com. PayPal started deleting these comments and it caused people to get more upset that their comments were getting deleted, which just made them comment negative things even more. I immediately thought that PayPal shouldn’t have deleted comments and they should have just replied to as many negative comments as they could addressing the problem.

PayPal’s public relations definitely made some mistakes. I found an article that presented three really good reasons as to why a company should never delete negative Facebook comments on ragan.com. They make negative comments on a companies post actually seem like a positive thing because 1) it gives you the opportunity to reply to the comment and change that persons mind 2) it gives you a chance to improve through their criticism and 3) you could see it as a positive thing that they are complaining on your Facebook page rather than on someone else’s.

Agora Pulse has an article about the option to hide comments rather than delete them, which may be better because the user and their friends will still be able to see their comment, just not anyone else. However this option could still cause backlash if they were to notice. Overall, the best option is probably to reply to a critical comment and address the issue. The only time that deleting or hiding a comment seems to be okay is if the comment is vulgar or offensive, spam, or completely off topic. This is important for everyone to know, but especially important for those who work in PR.

Reflection on Social Media Case 4: Nestle's "Funner Menu Options"

Nestle definitely found a way to stand out from others by creating their “funner menu options.” Companies are always looking for ways to stand out by communicating their corporate culture to others. Nestle did just that with these menu options. The menu options were funny and a big part of their corporate culture is marketing to children, which is probably why all of the menu options were appropriate for kids to listen to. Here is a link to Nestle’s values andprinciples.

The menu options got people talking about the “funner menu options” and had many people recommending others to go listen to it. Most of the conversations about this call menu happened on Reddit, which I think could have been because it happened in 2009 and social media wasn’t as big as it is today. I also found a mention of Nestle’s “funner menu options” on mentalfloss’ weekend links. I like how they said in the article that whoever came up with the menu options deserves a raise.

I also think that it’ interesting to compare this success story to another unsuccessful story, #McDStories. #McDStories happened in 2012 and McDonalds created a hashtag that went wrong. They wanted people to share their positive stories at McDonalds, but of course people started sharing negative things that have happened to them at the fast-food chain. Nestle on the other hand just created the menu without any mention of it on social media. This allowed for audiences to react to it in their own way and it was more of an organic process. Overall, Nestle definitely had more success than McDonalds, which makes me question how smart it is to try to stand out through social media. Anything can happen on social media because the results are in the hands of the users. Nestle was smart in creating their own stand-out idea, without including the general public through social media because it didn’t allow as much negative feedback as McDonalds got with their campaign.

Reflection on Social Media Case 3: Tom Petty's "Death" and Death

The early reporting of Tom Petty’s “death” and his actual death by different news sources sheds light on many different issues. The two issues that I will be discussing in more detail are the consequences of fake news stories as well as the consequences of being in a rush to be the first to report. Many different sources, such as the LAPD, CBS, Variety Magazine, TMZ, and Rolling Stone Magazine, reported on Tom Petty’s death before he had actually died. This caused mass confusion and upset some people, such as Tom Petty’s daughter. She was clearly angry about the false reporting when she commented at Rolling Stone saying, “my dad is not dead yet but your f***ing magazine is. How dare you report that my father has died just to get press because your articles and photos are so dated.”

That last sentence from Tom Petty’s daughter brings me to the issue of being in a rush to be the first to report on something. Sources rush to be the first to report on something because they want the publicity from it and all of the views and ratings. I think that sources are sometimes in such a rush to be the first to report on an issue that they don’t take the time to verify that it is actually true. This can lead to many negative consequences, as was shown in the case of Tom Petty’s “death” and death. Another consequence of sources being in a rush to be the first to report on a celebrity’s death could be disrespect to the family members. An example of this is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death, which may have been reported on before his family members even knew about his death. You can read more about The Rush to Report PhilipSeymour Hoffman’s Death here.

Although this paper focuses on the fake news of celebrity deaths, most of fake news is politically charged and tries to sway people a certain way. There are numerous consequences that come with reporting fake news in general. You can read more about the consequences of fake news here, as well as why our brains love fake news, and how to avoid being persuaded or giving in to fake news.

Social Media Case 2: Ellen Degeneres and most Re-Tweeted Photo

The Ellen Degeneres and Wendy’s chicken nugget re-tweet competition is a very interesting social media case to look at and compare. The biggest difference between these two tweets is that one is popular and one is viral. Ellen is obviously a very popular celebrity who took a selfie with lots of other popular celebrities at the Oscars. This tweet got so many retweets because it was so popular and people actually knew the celebrities and liked the content. However, I do think it’s important to note that Ellen did have an incentive as she said at the Oscars that she wanted to try and break the record of having the most retweets of a photo. The Wendy’s chicken nugget tweet got so many retweets not because it was popular, but because it went viral. Carter Wilkerson wanted a year supply of chicken nuggets and because Wendy’s gave him an incentive publicly, people retweeted his tweet and made the post go viral. I think that Seth Godin explains the difference between popular and viral best on his blog. He says that “Popular work resonates with the people who already like what you do. Viral work is what happens when the audience can’t stop talking about what you did.” 

Comparing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” video and Psy’s “Gangnum Style” video also gives some insight into the difference between popular and viral. Justin Bieber is obviously a very popular artist and most people know who he is. In fact, Justin Bieber had a fan base of 31.8 million twitter followers as of 2012 according to Mashable and Psy only had a fan base of 1.7 million Twitter followers in 2012. This is because he became known because of his viral “Gangnum Style” video. However, Justin Bieber was popular before his “Baby” video was released. You can view Mashable’s comparison of the two here.

Overall, these two comparisons show the power of social media, whether you’re popular or not. Everyone and anyone has a voice on social media and who knows, maybe something you post could go viral, resulting in more popularity for you.

Reflection on Social Media Case 1: McDStories

             This social media case really shows the power of social media and more specifically, the power of the hashtag. I honestly initially didn’t think that there was anything wrong with the hashtag “McDStories” but then it seemed like a no-brainer once I started reading the different articles on the topic. It’s easy to see how McDonald’s executives saw the hashtag as a fun way for people to share positive stories from their McDonald’s experiences. However, just because the executives see McDonalds in a positive light doesn’t mean that everyone else will. This was proven to be true when the hashtag was established.

               I also thought it was interesting to compare the two hashtags that McDonald’s used and the different effects that each one had. They also used a hashtag “#MeetTheFarmers” to talk about the fresh produce that they use. This hashtag wasn’t talked about much in the different articles that I read, but it seemed to have a positive effect because it was very specific. However, the “#McDStories” hashtag is a lot more vague and caused people to talk about their negative rather than positive experiences with McDonalds. Studying this social media case made me realize how important it is to consider other peoples possible reactions to a hashtag and how important it is to have specific hashtags that can’t be interpreted many different ways.

               The power of social media is so huge in this case. The negative tweets about McDonalds with the hashtag “#McDStories” happened within minutes of the hashtag being released, according to Hannah Roberts for Daily Mail. Although McDonald’s pulled “#McDStories” after realizing the negative impact it had, the damage had already been done. If you search #McDStories on Twitter there are still negative tweets that come up in 2017 and the campaign happened back in 2012. This shows that you should really think about what you are going to post on social media before you do, because once it’s out there it’s there forever.

               Of course, after something like this happens there is usually a statement released by the company. You can find the statement from McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion here. I thought that it was very interesting that he used the statement to try to make the hashtag incident seem like it wasn’t as big of a deal as it was. He talked about how that day there were 72,788 mentions of McDonald’s and only 2% of those were with the hashtag “#McDStories”. Wion ends the statement with saying that the “ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.” Do you agree that it stopped the whole incident from becoming “something larger” or no?

Social Media Change

Social media has changed communication in many ways. There are the obvious ways, which include having the ability to communicate with people from all over the world, rather than just people who you see in person. This also includes posting content that is available for anyone and everyone to see. Mandy Edwards talks about the negative effects of social media in her article, “How Social Media Has Changed HowWe Communicate”. She says that social media has changed the way that we interact and has caused us to lose some of our social skills. She also says that it has changed our writing techniques which has caused us to use more abbreviations, leading to us “speaking a new language entirely.”

               The article “6 Ways Social Media Changed the Way We Communicate” by Audrey Willis talks about social media in a more positive light and touches on how higher education can utilize it for marketing campaigns. In fact, any business can use social media as a marketing tool. This article also talks about how social media can virtually transport you to any place in the world through snapchat or Instagram stories and provide insight from actual people that live there on what it’s like. Universities can also use these apps to show students who are thinking about attending the university what life is like on campus. Another thing that this article talks about is how journalism has been incorporated into social media. Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter have made news more accessible to their users. It’s no wonder being as findings have shown that “40 percent of millennials rely on digital outlets for their news, while 23 percent primarily get their news from social media” (Willis). Another interesting thing that this article touches on is Facebook and Instagram Live. These features have helped us to share our current moments with our followers and have even been used for more serious matters. They have also created a platform for people to have live conversations about those serious matters, which has led to positive change.

               Brianna Hand’s article on temporary social media (like snaps on snapchat) talks about how this particular form of social media has changed the way we communicate. She argues that there is “less at stake” on Snapchat because everything you post is temporary. She also argues that using temporary social media results in more authentic moments. Part of the reason for this could be that people don’t have time to think of a reaction and instead have to react in the moment, which creates more authentic responses and conversations. Brianna also states that temporary social media is a good platform for brands to communicate. One of the reasons for this is because it creates a sense of urgency being as the post can only be seen for up to 24 hours and no one wants to miss out on it.

               The above examples are just some of the ways that social media has changed communication. What are some other ways that it has changed communication that you can think of? Do you think it has a positive or negative impact on communication? I personally believe that social media mostly has a positive impact on communication as long as you’re using it the right way and for the right things.