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.