#TheInternet: Makes you who you wana be?
Posted by Dan | Filed under Blog, Ideas, Thinking
I have spoken about the ‘Social Reality Show‘ in previous posts; the human obsession with the famous and the new tools celebrities use to gain media attention, but also the desire some people have to be an Internet star. It’s all possible with YouTube and Twitter. What Katie Wore and Shit my dad says are great examples of this.
Thinking about celebrity Twitter profiles, Facebook pages and MySpace profiles; what is the motivation for someone to pretend to be a celebrity and post as if they were them?
Is the motivation that some people behind the screen of their computer want this attention, they want the attention that major celebrities get? I think this in some ways ties back into what I wrote before about the ‘Social Reality Show’. Twitter introduced a ‘Verified’ element to their accounts. A seal of verification appears at the top of celebrities profiles when they have been validated to help stop this. That is the hard stop tactic, but I think we need to understand why people imitate in order to stop it (or if it can be).
When you were a child I am sure many of you pretended to be someone famous, either when scoring whilst playing football or some sort of role playing activity where you were Indiana Jones or the Karate Kid? Does the fact people create fake Twitter profiles mean that they want to ‘play’ at being Michael Owen for a bit longer, living their unfulfilled football dream, or as a supermodel to feel happy for a few moments?
Are we just talking about a different form of escapism here?
On a side note, does this also tie into ‘Nowism’? People want the feeling, the benefits, the attention, and they want it now? Social media by its nature has given us the opportunity to do this.
So maybe social media has widened the number of tools we have to escape?
Tags: escapism, facebook, Social Media, Twitter
Brands, listen up!
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Thinking
I came across this post on the Made By Many blog yesterday and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. A brand who are actually using social media to listen to their consumers, to respond, engage and connect with them.
The story in short:
Simon I’Anson, of social digital agency Made By Many, has taken to tweeting about the goings on in the Bose electronics shop he overlooks from his work desk. Using #bosewatch to tag his tweets, he wrote about the seemingly mundane occurrences in the shop. One day, Simon received a phone call from the shop’s Assistant Manager. They had a nice chat. Simon was invited into the Bose shop for a further chat and a look round. Off he went. And he reported back only nice things.
This is a classic case of brands being active within the online community; listening to what people are saying about their brand and then reacting to it.
It opens up a communication channel between the brand and the potential audience and makes the end consumer feel as if they are important to the brand.
It’s personal.
Then, this morning, my father sends me an email to say that Glasses Direct have asked him to appear in their next TV ad. Naturally, I tweeted about this. Within a couple of minutes, @glasses_direct had sent me a message saying that they were looking forward to meeting him and how could they welcome him? I LOVE this level of service and consumer outreach!
Listen. Understand. Engage.
It’s a good model for other brands to follow.
On a side note, my esteemed other Shift F7-er, the lovely Dan, would like to disagree with me on this.
Dan says:
“There are two perspectives; brands engaging by pulling in users by creating an exciting promotion or strategy, and then there are brands, such as the ones you mentioned, who actively look for comments to respond to. I think there is a line… certain comments brands can and should be responding to, but others they shouldn’t, as it is effectively stalking. Some people don’t want brands to contact them about their comment as it is a mundane statement… others may.
So as a caveat, yes brands can do this, but as always it shouldn’t be abused as it could be seen as SPAM!”
What do YOU think?
Tags: Bose, Glasses Direct, Made By Many, Social Media, Twitter
We Are Shift F7 are on Twitter
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Talk
Of course we are!
Follow us @WeAreShiftF7 and we might just follow you back!
Tags: Twitter
News Beat vs. News Tweet
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Thinking
Firstly, a few words about celebrity death…
When Michael Jackson died, I first found out about it on Twitter. At the time I found it a little bit disturbing . Today, I discovered Stephen Gately had died. Through Twitter.
I also learnt that Rio had won the bid for the 2016 Olympics through (yep, you’ve guessed it) Twitter, and countless other bits and bobs of news there before anywhere else.
How, exactly, is it that Twitter has suddenly become my main source of news?
With newspapers shutting down left, right and centre, and online versions considering charging subscriptions to try and scrape together some form of revenue to stay afloat, people are, naturally, increasingly turning to the multiple news sources on the web. Twitter, it seems, has become a news aggregator. The ‘immediate’ nature of Twitter means that news is published, well, immediately, making it one of the most reliable and instant sources of news today. Possibly.
I’m sure the folk at Twitter HQ realise the potential for this, and it will be interesting to see how Twitter may influence or affect other online news media in the near future.
The Social Reality Show
Posted by Dan | Filed under Blog, Thinking
Something that has been on my mind for a while is that social media is like the next level of reality TV. People log on to Twitter and other social networks to see what real people are doing. Generic users start Tweeting about Tweeting, or telling the world that ‘this is my status message’.
Over the past few years as we have seen a rise in reality TV programming, has this now shifted online? There are two types of people that the users seem to follow… a fully fledged star or an internet phenomena!
From the likes of Paris Hilton posting pictures of herself, to Justin (ShitMyDadSays) creating a Twitter account for his (supposed) Dad and posting funny quotes on what he has said. Are we too interested in other people these days? This is a general observation and clearly can not be applied to all, but for the generic human, is that all they strive for?
More to come on this topic!
Tags: celebs, reality tv, Social Media, social reality, Twitter
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