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.