Tag Archive for: Social Media

Facebook Finally Gets the #Hashtag

ImageThe #hashtag—they help users categorize messages. Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Vine, Pinterest and Instagram have them, and now it’s time to add the top dog of social media sites to the list. Yesterday, Facebook confirmed that it now officially supports the categorizing tool, allowing users to hashtag posts and making them clickable and searchable.

“To date, there has not been a simple way to see the larger view of what’s happening or what people are talking about,” Facebook’s Greg Lindley said. “To bring these conversations more to the forefront, we will be rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics. As a first step, we are beginning to roll out hashtags on Facebook.”

Like the other social networks, clicking on a Facebook hashtag will bring up a feed that accumulates other posts that contain the tag. Linking an Instagram picture to you Facebook page? Those hashtags will be clickable, too. Users will also be able to create posts directly from a hashtag feed and search results. No need to worry about your privacy settings—Facebook clarified to ABC News that hashtagged posts will still respect your regular privacy settings.

Why the hashtag and not another method? Those at Facebook said that they’re already all over the social network thanks to other outlets like Twitter and Instagram. “People were already using hashtags on Facebook—we just made them clickable,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

Is the hashtag not clickable on your Facebook account yet? According to Mashable, Facebook will roll out hashtags to more users in the coming weeks.

How do you feel about hashtags coming to Facebook? Let us know!

Alexis Listens to Twitter CEO Speak at University of Michigan 2013 Spring Commencement

Hopefully the title of this post hasn’t turned the Ohio State fans away from reading this blog already.

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Three weeks ago, my parents and I headed to Ann Arbor to watch my brother receive his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. Now attending a commencement ceremony for a class with a few thousand students doesn’t seem like the ideal way to spend your afternoon (it took an hour and a half for all the graduates to walk into the Big House and take their seats). But when I heard that Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO, was the guest speaker, my interest quickly sparked. Seeing that I had just given a lecture on Twitter through the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber the week before, as well as being the one logged onto social media the most in the McConnell office, I was really excited to hear what he had to say.

“You know I have to start with by tweeting this, so just give me one second. I’m a professional so this will only take a second.” Costolo, a graduate of UM, pulled out his smartphone, snapped a picture of the graduating class and tweeted it. Naturally, I hopped onto Twitter to see if my section made the photo, and of course, my parents and I just got cut off.

“When I was your age we didn’t have the Internet in our pants,” Costolo joked. “We didn’t even have the Internet not in our pants—that’s how bad it was.”

Not only did his humor grab my attention, Costolo’s speech was also inspiring. After graduating with a Computer Science degree, and with three job offers from technology companies under his belt, he moved to Chicago to pursue his dream of stand-up comedy. As he is now the CEO of Twitter, fame in the comedic world didn’t work out for him like his fellow Second City classmate, Steve Carell. He explained, “You cannot draw that path looking forward. You cannot draw any of your paths looking forward. So you have to figure out what you love to do and what you have conviction about and go do that.”

“There are no expectations. There’s no script. When you’re doing what you love to do, you become resilient because that’s the habit you create for yourself. You create a habit of taking chances on yourself and making bold choices in service to doing what you love. If on the other hand, you do what you think is expected of you or what you are supposed to do, and things go poorly…as surely it will, you will look to external sources for what to do next because that will be the habit you’ve created for yourself.”

There are so many highlights, I would basically be writing the manuscript of his 17-minute speech for you to read. So you should probably just watch it instead.

As I watched and listened with a smile on my face throughout the entire time, Costolo couldn’t have ended his speech more perfectly—“hashtag go blue!”

Reputation Management – Social Media Gets Visual

Most recently, social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram have been growing as top-runners in the social media scene. And according to Adam Leposa of HotelManagement.net, these visual-dominated apps give hoteliers an opportunity to develop their online reputations by showing off their products in pictures.

One big (and important) aspect of a guest’s hotel experience is the look of the hotel, which gives hotel operators a big opportunity to delve into visual marketing. “A lot of consumers are very visually driven,” said Kristen Poillon, director of marketing at HotelMe, an online review business affiliated with USA Today. “It’s becoming more prevalent; even on sites like Facebook, you’ve started to see a whole shift in the types of content that people are sharing—less text and more photos is the direction that a lot of these sites are headed toward.”

Screen Shot 2013-03-14 at 12.37.59 PMHowever, Leposa says that hoteliers looking to take advantage of these visual marketing opportunities should be aware that marketing on Instagram and Pinterest poses very difficult challenges than more traditional channels. “The main thing is that it’s really to tell a visual story, and not do a blatant promotion,” Julie Squires, CEO of Softscribe said. “It should be about your guests, not so much what you want to tell your guests. It should be about what your guests want to hear.”

“They might never come to your property but they’ll share that and share [this], and that helps from a reputation-management perspective, but not in a monitoring way, but creating a positive experience,” Tim Peter, managing director of Tim Peter and Associates, a web-marketing consultancy.

Fortunately, hoteliers aren’t the only ones to deliver the best content—one of the best ways to build a hotel’s visual reputation is to make sure guests can get involved as well. Building a sense of community can help hoteliers move away from damage control and work toward more positive aspects of marketing—giving them an opportunity to really engage customers.

“Look for people who are talking about you, your competitors, what they have to say, …what they’re pinning. Then, start to think about engaging with folks either by repinning their materials or sharing materials with them,” said Peter.

When it comes to tracking a hotel’s online reputation on these visual marketing platforms, it can prove a bit challenging. Some monitoring tools for these image-heavy sites are available to monitor image quality and others to monitor text and hashtags, but Leposa writes that the processes aren’t very sophisticated yet. “You have to rely more on the links going out than the text,” Poillon said.

When it all comes down to it, marketers do advise one technique for hoteliers to track their online reputation on photo-sharing sites: “Let the good overpower the not-so-good.”

To read Leposa’s entire article, visit HotelManagement.net.

So What Exactly Is Vine?

Screen Shot 2013-02-06 at 10.21.40 AMYou have probably heard everyone talking about Vine, Twitter’s “amazing” new app. The app has arrived on iOS, and you may have even downloaded it—but you’re probably wondering, “What exactly is it?” Alex Hern at NewsStatesman.com has all the answers:

Vine is an app—currently only for iOS—that records six seconds of video and posts it on an endless loop to your Twitter account. If you are familiar with the animated gif, this is very similar. The videos automatically start playing, are muted by default, endlessly loop and must be between three and six seconds long. “You aren’t going to be making movies with these, or even any sort of narrative video clip at all—it’s purely for sharing “moments”,” Hern said.

There are limitations, however. Hern said, “Vine offers no option for editing after you’ve recorded, nor does it let you import videos taken or downloaded elsewhere.”

So how does Vine work with Twitter? You can sign up with your Twitter account and share every post to Twitter by default. It’s also possible to use the service without Twitter at all. One can sign up with an e-mail address and then not export any video from Vine.

So what do you think of Vine? Will you be signing up?

Get a Social Media Butler with Your Stay at the Madison Hotel—for $47,000

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Heading to Washington, D.C. to watch President Obama get sworn in for his second term? Want a luxurious hotel experience while you’re there? With all the excitement of witnessing a moment of history and living in the lap of luxury, how will you have time to live-tweet, Facebook and Instagram your experience?

Well, worry no more. According to the Daily Dot (via Mashable), the Madison Hotel is now offering an “Inaugural Town and Country” package. For a mere $47,000 (a four-night stay), the package includes a private Lincoln Town Car and driver, a couple’s massage, a $5,000 gift certificate for clothes, a night in a different hotel and the exclusive services of a dedicated “social media butler.”

What is a social media butler, you ask? According to the Madison Hotel’s press release, digital marketer Victoria Devine will “chronicle you Inaugural experience so your friends and family can follow your adventures on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.”

Devine will “post on all of your accounts so you don’t have to fumble for your phone to catch that perfect Facebook profile picture!”

When interviewing with the Daily Dot, Devine said she had never been a social media butler before, but has experience live-tweeting conferences for previous clients.

She and the hotel haven’t exactly worked out what her services would be—like if she’ll have to work 24 hours a day. “We haven’t really figured out the details,” she said. “I guess we’re waiting to see if anyone buys it.”

Regardless of the money, would you want a social media butler? Or would you prefer to just post yourself? Comment and let us know!

*Image from www.thedailywhat.tumblr.com