Yellow for Greg: A Community Connected through Social Media

When a group of teenagers or young adults are asked why they use sites like Facebook and Twitter, most will say they use it to stay connected with friends and family.  I certainly agree; it’s one of the many reasons I use social media.  Although that thought has always been there, I’ve never really seen social media connect people directly until it happened in my community among high school students.

I was on Facebook one day in early April, and I noticed my aunt had liked a photo.  It was a picture of boys sitting in a church, and they were all dressed in yellow.  The caption described that they were wearing yellow for Greg.  I didn’t give much thought to it, and moved on.  I went on Twitter next, and my sister had tweeted #YellowforGreg several times, and all of the sudden my whole Twitter feed had the hashtag #YellowforGreg.  I texted my sister to ask about it, and after she explained to to me, she said “Like it on Facebook and follow it on Twitter. Or else.”

Greg Von Rueden is a 15-year-old boy who has an aggressive form of bone cancer.  In March, he received news that he had beaten the cancer, but two weeks later, he found out the cancer had returned. The doctors found a mass in his knee, and were unable to perform surgery to remove it.  The cancer has now spread to other parts of his body.  

Greg happens to go to school at Marquette University High School, the all-boys Jesuit high school in Milwaukee, where many of my cousins have gone.  That’s why my aunt had liked the picture.  The day the picture was taken, the students were told to wear yellow in support of Greg.

Greg was a volleyball player and volleyball players from Milwaukee wore all yellow to a tournament in early April.  They started to post and tweets pictures of them wearing yellow on Facebook and Twitter, and it caught the eye of the Milwaukee local news station, TMJ4, who later formed a news clip about the tournament and what all the yellow was about.

The day after, Yellow for Greg had both a Twitter and Facebook account.  The Facebook page has 1,402 likes and the Twitter account has 1,432 followers already.

The Yellow for Greg Facebook page has links to videos others have made him, news clips, and links to places where others can learn more about him and his fight against bone cancer.  It also frequently advertises the Yellow Run 4 Greg, a 5K walk/run on May 5.  As of Friday, April 19, 312 people were signed up to participate.

The Twitter account started off in early April tweeting “#YellowforGreg #NoOneFightsAlone” in the effort to trend in Milwaukee and eventually nationally.  The account retweets many tweets of others who use the hashtag.  There have been tweets to Aaron Rodgers, The Ellen Show, and the Milwaukee Brewers to get them to show their support.  The MACC Fund, USA Volleyball, and JJ Watt, a former UW-Madison football player who now plays for the Houston Texans have tweeted and shown their support for Greg.  Lately, the Twitter account has promoted the run coming up in May.

Although last week was a rough week for the country in general, seeing the young people in my home community connect through social media in encouragement for a boy who has been through more than most of us will ever experience has given me great hope for and faith in our future.

 

 

Cats, Dogs and Social Media

I found out Wednesday of this past week that you’re really never too old for a field trip.  Especially when that field trip includes incredibly cute dogs waiting to be adopted.

My social media class took a field trip to the Nebraska Humane Society to learn about their social media sites and what their strategies are on these social media sites.   (We also got to look at the dogs for a few minutes as well!)

Our speaker focused mostly on their Facebook page. She first started working at the Humane Society when they had no social media presence at all, so part of her job was to start the Facebook presence of the Humane Society.  She started simple;  each day she would post either a picture of a dog or a picture of a cat and explain their stories below the pictures.  She said it was frustrating because it wasn’t really working; not a lot of people responded to this method.  She explained to us that most of the strategies she uses or wants to use on social media sites are at first trial and error methods.  There is no way whether to tell if a strategy will work; you have to test it out and decide if it was worthwhile based on the analytics you receive back.  I think with any organization and any social media plan, a lot of the techniques are going to be trial and error techniques.

After she noticed that after her initial technique wasn’t working, she literally asked people what they wanted to see from her on Facebook.  This eliminates a ton of guesswork and it may limit a huge failure in the making.  I thought it was interesting that she just posted and asked the people directly what they wanted to see; I wouldn’t have thought about doing that, and I think it’s a great idea for growing any organization’s social media presence.

Her most recent campaign on Facebook was an awareness of placing a chip inside your animal.  The Humane Society chipped animals for only $10.  The chip identifies the owner of the animal in case the animal is lost.  The campaign was a huge success; they chipped over 400 animals in one night.  They advertised their campaign using a graphic with the slogan “Hip to Chip.”  Our speaker told us that visuals are everything; people don’t want to just read words, they want to see pictures.  She also noted the importance of responding to every comment that they receive.  For example, I noticed that a person commented that she was unsure if she wanted to chip her animal.  The Humane Society responded and told her that just a few weeks ago an animal that was lost for over 6 years was reunited with its owner thanks to its chip.

Another technique that is used on Facebook is telling people to like or share a post.  People will be more likely to like or share if you ask or tell them to.  They most likely won’t take the initiative to do it themselves.  

One of my favorite parts of the field trip was meeting Baxter (his picture is on the right).  He’s absolutely adorable, but he does have a sad story of abuse and neglect in his past.  The Humane Society did find him an owner; actually, an employee of the Humane Society is his owner now.  Stories like Baxter’s are often used when the Humane Society is trying to raise money so they can provide services to animals.  Our speaker mentioned that raising money is the hardest thing to do on social media, and often times, you won’t get responses,  you’ll lose likes, or you’ll get angry comments.

It was really great to get out of the classroom and learn about social media through a real life example.  I enjoyed seeing all the cute dogs, and it was certainly a fun and educational field trip!

The Supreme Court, Same-Sex Marriage and Social Media

I don’t know about you, but I saw a lot of pink equal signs last week.  

I was on Facebook on Wednesday of last week, glanced over to the “Chat” bar that is on the right hand side of my screen, and noticed that every person’s profile picture (excluding two or three people) was changed to the pink equal sign.  I had no idea what it was until I scrolled through my news feed to figure out that it was in support of same-sex marriage.  The Supreme Court was hearing cases for and against it two days last week.  Shows you how much I know about current events.

According to an article published last week on TIME.com, the Human Rights Campaign promoted the image of the pink equal sign over the red background on social media during the Supreme Court hearings that matches their logo of a yellow equal sign on a blue background.  In 24 hours, the logo got 25,000 likes and 78,000 shares on Facebook.  They knew exactly how to reach their audience.

We love to talk about and share things and events from our lives on social media sites.  In fact, it’s only natural for us to do so.  When hotly debated topics become popular topics of discussion, it seems as if those who feel strongly one way just love to share their opinions.  I know I experienced it throughout election season, and I see it here now. It makes me think about the need that some people feel to share opinions, and to do so publicly.  I’m not necessarily against putting opinions on social media, but when people share excessively, can annoy a lot of their followers/friends. No matter which “side” you’re on concerning same-sex marriage, I would think it was a little overwhelming to see all the equal signs.

I also got to thinking, “how is changing your profile picture beneficial in this case?”  Sure, now everyone knows you support same-sex marriage, but ultimately changing the law is not your decision.  It’s the Supreme Court’s decision.  They are not going to all of the sudden change their opinions on the issue and they are certainly not going to tally up who is for it/who is against it based on social media.  What difference does it make in the end? 

In the sea of all of the pink equal signs, I found that one of my friends had the same red background as her profile picture but instead of the pink equal sign, it had a pink male and a pink female figure (like the ones you see on public bathroom signs) holding hands.  It states “One Man.  One Woman.”  I noticed it had a number of comments, and I clicked on it.  The first comment was “Are you serious?” and she replied “I wouldn’t put it as my profile picture if I wasn’t serious.”  She then goes on to say that she was just stating her opinion, like every other person who changed their profile picture to the pink equal sign logo.  Then others started to try to convince her to support same-sex marriage with their opinions.  I give her major props.  It takes guts to publicize that you disagree with a large number of people.

I’m looking at my chat list now, and there aren’t any red equal signs or male/female figures.  I hadn’t seen that much information or reaction to a Supreme Court hearing in a long time.  To add to that, was only two days of Supreme Court time.  They don’t even make their decision until June! I bet you we’ll see round two once the times draws nearer for the Court to makes its decision.

The State of Social Media from 2012-2013

Each year The Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism releases the “State of the Media,” a report card based on news and media performance in the past year.  This year they had a fairly big section addressing social media, as it is now a big base for news reporting.

The report addresses almost immediately the age of people using social media.  It is typical to think that teenagers and young adults most widely use social media, but it was interesting to see that the 30-39 year old age group is growing in their number of social media users. As a professional using social media, one must be aware of his or her audience that is now growing older and older; it is no longer a tool to reach only young audiences.  The report reflected that around 30% of 18-24 year olds see news on social media sites, increasing from 2010.  I can definitely see that shift in the last few years in personal experiences.  When people used to talk about Facebook, it was always about certain pictures seen on certain people’s walls.  Now, there is more talk about articles they’ve seen and/or posted on Facebook.

In the last few years particularly, everything has gone mobile.  Ever since I got my iPhone this past Christmas, I probably use it more than my computer.  All social media sites are visited on my iPhone.  Not to mention most people on this campus have iPhones and are constantly on them. They say that every dollar in print is worth a dime on the Internet and a penny on mobile devices.  The move to mobile is great for the consumer because everything becomes easier, but it is harder for the professional, because it means making a lot less money for the same amount of material, just on a different medium.

The report stresses Facebook and Twitter, the most popular social media sites.  It describes Facebook as a tool to share news; you can even make your news feed into a “personalized newspaper” with new features  Facebook has added.  Twitter, on the other hand, is used for breaking news.  I’ve noticed that in my personal experiences; if I’m off my phone and Twitter during class and I check it once I’m out of class, at least one of the news organizations will have a headline tweeted.

Although these are the most popular social media sites, the report suggests that using Facebook and Twitter to spread news is not enough.  It stresses the importance of using social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram to share more information, if those sites are appropriate for the type of material presented by a certain news organization.

One piece of information I found in the report that was interested me was the description of the graph search feature on Facebook.  I wasn’t aware that journalists can search any public information or photos by topic to find sources for news stories.  It presents a great advantage for journalists and professionals, but it adds another reason for consumers to be careful about what they post publicly.

Analysis of Social Media Tools

Four Square 

Description: an app (GPS app) where users can check into certain places; depending on how often they visit and check in, they can receive points that sometimes include benefits

Organizations using it: Restaurants, Starbucks- good advertising 

Paid option?: No, you wouldn’t want to use a paid option because it gives you coupons depending on how many times you check in for free 

Recommend?: Only for businesses who are willing give out discounts and for those who like a certain place and want to get discounts-otherwise, it’s not really useful

Pro: discounts for people who check in often, advertising for businesses; Con: not useful except if you want discounts for something 

Google + 

Description: It’s a website where you can have a profile like Facebook, and also Skype and get together with people on Google +

Organizations: international businesses, or businesses that are spread out-hangouts would help them communicate

Paid option?: only for professional use (help you look more professional) but not needed for personal use

Recommend?: Yes! Supposedly the hangouts are really cool, and it’s engaging because it is like having Facebook and Skype together in one tool.  People can see you and communicate with you in real time. 

Pro: Skype and Facebook together in one tool; Con: only really useful for international businesses or businesses that are spread out–small businesses most likely won’t benefit from it 

Vine 

Description: an app that lets you embed videos (up to six seconds) in tweets-it’s like snap chat

Organizations: maybe music organizations? you can do a six second sneak peak of a song 

Paid option?: No, I don’t recommend it…there’s really no point for paying for it, since the features for free aren’t really that epic

Recommend?: No, not for professional use.  How would a business effectively use this large scale?  For personal use, sure.  Or you could use snap chat.

Pro: Snap chat and twitter fused together; Con: not very effective; pointless  

 

The Social Media Frenzy Over Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation

It was a Monday morning like any other.

 I woke up, immediately grabbed my phone, and checked my email.  I got an email from Creighton’s Catholic Student Organization, letting us know that Pope Benedict XVI had announced that he was stepping down on February 28.  Still half asleep, I remember thinking that was interesting, but not thinking much of it.  After a few minutes, I thought, “Wait, don’t popes usually die in office?” 

I checked Twitter on my iPhone, and honestly every other tweet was about the pope’s resignation.  I follow news organizations such as ABC, CBS, and AP and all of them had the headline and the link to their blurb about it on their websites.  I saw a lot of tweets from friends and family back home saying, “Timothy Dolan for pope!” (Cardinal Dolan was the archbishop of Milwaukee, my hometown, and now the archbishop of New York.   According to CBS, he could be considered as the next pope, although there’s a slim chance the Church will choose an American pope.  It’d be really cool though; I’ve seen him preside over mass several times.) One Creighton student tweeted, “I hear that Father Lannon is a front runner for the recently-opened Pope position. #Lannon4Pope”  It had 15 retweets.  

Of course the next question is why is he resigning? He is the first pope in 598 years to do so. Of course every news organization has its theory, but CNN‘s video of the pope announcing his resignation caught by eye on Facebook.  Apparently he feels too old and too sick to continue to lead the Church well.

Well, every one feels that they need to comment on that.  People speculate who the next pope will be, and they reflect on this history of the Church and the pope himself.  This is a huge story for the media.  They love surprises and crises within the Church. Pope Benedict’s resignation story took up 3/4 of USA Today’s front page. The reaction this announcement got is comparable to the reaction after a presidential election.

 Despite all the reaction and speculation, what I found interesting is that the pope never commented on it.  Did you know that the Pope has a twitter? True story, his account is @Pontifex if you want to follow him for the next 12 days.  He has 35 tweets, and none of them mention anything about his resignation.  But of course he tweeted about the beginning of Lent on Wednesday. 

I checked his Twitter because I had thought that he would of tweeted something. I obviously didn’t find anything, but I took a look at his profile.  He has 1.5 million followers, which is pretty good, considering there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world.  I found that he only follows 8 people.  And those 8 people are himself, but his accounts in different languages: one in Spanish, one in Arabic, one in Italian, etc.  I had fun discovering and playing around with those.

Maybe he does need to quit his day job to play around on Twitter (another joke floating around out there). But I give him props for even being on Twitter in the first place.  Talk about connecting with your followers. 

Kodak’s Social Media Policy

In my social media class, we have been discussing social media policies of different organizations, as we soon will be writing our own social media policy for a company.  I decided to evaluate Kodak’s social media policy. 

1. Does the policy have an introduction? Does it contain the organization’s core values, mission, role of social media? 

Kodak’s policy does have an introduction, about three paragraphs.  It doesn’t explicitly spell out it’s core values and mission, but it says that all social media must support the “one voice policy” which can be found on their Business Conduct Guide.  It does say that social media is used to strengthen the brand, strengthen connection with customers and key influencers, to keep on top of new trends and topics and to offer advice. 

2. Does the policy encourage social media use? How does it do that? Or if not, how does it do that? 

I would say that it definitely encourages social media use.  At the end of the policy, it has a section entitled “Troubleshooting Social Media” which explains answers to questions like “What do I do if someone leaves a negative comment?”, “No one is following our blog!”, or “I don’t have time to do all of this!”.  I know I definitely would be hesitant to participate in social media because of time, so I found that helpful.  It also busts some myths about social media, such as social media is for kids, and social media isn’t for businesses.  It says that 83% of all businesses have a Facebook.  

3. Are there more don’ts than dos? Examples.  

It has more dos than don’ts.  I only saw the word “Don’t” twice.  “Do not denigrate or insult others, including competitors” was one, but the word “don’t” is included in a bolded sub headline: “Don’t be fooled.”  There is also some language that suggests not doing something, such as the words “avoid” and “never”.

4. Is there a conclusion that spells out procedures if the policy isn’t followed?

No, not at all.  That’s so interesting!  It would be scary if I was an employee and didn’t follow one of the rules.  I would have no idea what could happen to me.  

5. Is the language of the policy readable? How long is it? Does it refer to other company policies/procedures?

I like this policy very much, because it is very readable.  It splits information up into sections (labeled 1, 2, 3, etc.) and under these numbers, it has bullet points, which is much more appealing to read than a paragraph.  Even if there are no bullet points, the paragraphs are not massive and not too intimidating to read.  It is about five pdf pages long, but two of these pages contain full-page graphics, and not necessarily text about the policies.  Some of the pages of the policy also have pictures that fill half of the page.  It does not mention policies of other companies.  

6. What suggestions do you have to make the policy better?

The first thing I would do is spell out the consequences if rules are not followed.  I understand that they want to encourage social media use and the consequences may make people hesitant, but at the same time, I think it’s important to know what would happen if the rules are not followed.  I honestly don’t have any other suggestions to make it better.  The policy is clear, short, and it even includes examples within the Kodak community how social media was used and how effective it was.  The policy also includes tips on how to protect the company’s information and more importantly, personal information.  This shows that Kodak cares not only about its own brand, but the reputation of its employees within their personal lives.  

7. Does it explain copyright issues and does it have a policy on using other information correctly?

It bolds “obtain permission before posting copyrighted information”, and it also says to avoid talking about others and Kodak personal and private business information.  It also refers the reader to the “Kodak Business Conduct Guide.”   

 

 

 

 

Social Media and the Super Bowl

This is the first time in my lifetime that I had absolutely no interest in watching the Super Bowl. I watched a little bit of the second quarter and the halftime show, but that’s about it.  Why I am blogging about it, then?  I was on Twitter and Facebook while others were watching the game, and I have seen multiple Super Bowl ads on YouTube.

The only interesting aspects about the Super Bowl this year were the ads and the halftime show.  The game itself was a bore until the second half.  The San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens are two unlikely Super Bowl teams. The fact that they both made it to the Super Bowl is surprising, but that the Baltimore Ravens of all teams ended up winning is even more surprising.  I have nothing against either of those teams or their fans, but I was born and raised as a Packer fan.  The Packers weren’t in the Super Bowl, neither were the teams that I passionately dislike ( namely,the Vikings, the Bears and the Lions), and so therefore I don’t really care who or who doesn’t win the Super Bowl.

That had nothing to do with social media, but I decided that paragraph was necessary.

I’m no expert on advertising; I’m not really intrigued by it and it’s not a track I’m following in the journalism department. I did hear that each commercial during the Super Bowl cost 37 million dollars. Crazy.  However, I’d like to applaud Budweiser.  They made a great commercial; it really tugs at the heart strings.  I almost teared up the first time I watched it.

Let’s talk about Beyonce, shall we?  I’ve heard her name so many times in the last couple of days it’s become annoying.  After she performed during halftime, I turned the T.V. off and decided to check my Facebook and Twitter.  Probably about half of the people I’m following on Twitter had something to say about the performance: how it blowed their minds (so much so that the lights in the stadium blew out), or how attractive she was, or how talented she was, etc.  There were a few posts about it on Facebook, but not as many as there were on Twitter. Beyonce not only blew people’s minds, but she also blew up the Twitter world. Oh, by the way, her performance had nothing to do with the lights going out in the stadium.  Time.com tweeted this link today with the story.

I personally find it funny because in all honestly I wasn’t impressed as I wanted to be. Watching her, first of all, just makes me jealous because I can’t move like she can.  I wish I could, but it’s not happening in the near future. Or ever. Secondly, she barely sang anything.  I would of liked to hear her sing live.  She apparently was more interested in dancing.  I’m sure the male population enjoyed all of that very much.  I’m probably very alone in this opinion, and it might be because I’m just me.

According to Mashable.com, there were 268,000 tweets per minute when Beyonce ended her performance.  The number of times “Beyonce” was mentioned on Facebook  that night went up by 49,000%.

My Social Media Reach and Influence

I didn’t expect my reach and influence to be high, considering I’m fairly new to the idea of using social media for reasons other than personal use.  I’ve been on Facebook for four years and Twitter for eight months, and LinkedIn for a few weeks.  I’m wary of using social media that I don’t know much about (like Google +), and I don’t want to have to keep track of a million different social media sites.

My Klout Score: 26

My Social Mention Stats: 0% strength    

2:0 sentiment

70% passion

3% reach

(I forgot that all my Creightonian articles are online too, so that contributed to these stats!)

My Kred Score: 396

My Twitalyzer: I’m a casual user, with a 0 impact score.

In order to improve my scores, I can use social media more often (especially Facebook, which I rarely use now) and try to connect with more people on these sites.  I can also engage in conversations over social media, which I learned helps improve your reach and influence.  I can also explore other social media sites I’m not as comfortable using, and become comfortable with them.

 

 

Defining Myself in Twenty Words

That’s right. I’m going to attempt to define my nineteen years of life, my accomplishments, my hopes and dreams, my characteristics, and my personality using at most twenty words.  I can’t even use 140 characters, the amount of words in a tweet. Nope. Just a sentence. Challenge accepted. Bring it on.  

Watching Daniel Pink’s video as the introduction to our assignment intimidated me.  Only one sentence? Seriously? There’s absolutely no way.  I’m involved in too many activities, not to mention school, and I cannot list all my characteristics and personality traits in one sentence.  But I think Pink makes a point.  When we get too wrapped up in everything that we are and do, we lose focus and many times get overwhelmed.  So, his two sentences that he claims can change lives are first, “What’s your sentence?” (how do you define yourself and your goals?) and second, “Was I better today than I was yesterday?” I really like that last question, the one that makes a person reflect from day to day.  I can’t start doing that however until I define myself in a sentence, and narrow the focus in order to reflect clearly.  

I realized that in order to do this, I have to determine certain things, such as my personal strengths and talents.  I hate answering questions like those, mostly because I prefer modesty,  but also because my self-confidenece isn’t 100%.  I’m still going to take a whack at it, however, because I’m going to have this all defined for interviews in that scary and confusing world of internships and jobs anyway. 

My top three personal strengths:

• If I’m passionate about what I’m doing, I work hard and do everything to the best of my ability.
• Many people describe me as sweet, caring, thoughtful.  I’d say those are strengths to my character and personality. 
• I’m a very dependable person.  Whether people depend on me to be there for them, or something needs to be done, I can be depended upon in most situations.  

My top three talents:  

• Writing. Not necessarily about literature, but journalistic writing, sure.  (I love journalism too!) 
• Organization.  I don’t know what I’d do without binders or my color-coded calendar. 
• Making people smile.  Even if I smile at them or say a simple “hi”, I can get most people to smile or express some sort of emotion.  

What I want to do and what sets me apart: I know I most certainly want to write things that will help others–whether that be a person, a company, or an organization.  Hence, my majors in both news (helping others understand what is going on) and public relations (maintaining relationships through communication between a company and/or organization and its target audiences).  A lot of people are good writers and want to get involved in PR and news.  But why me? What’s so special about me? I know writing is something I love and something I’m going to be doing for a good portion of my life. I know technology, social media, and other forms of communication are going to change the face of journalism, but I might as well have fun with it while I’m at it.  I like to stay positive, have fun, but I also understand the seriousness of my job or project.  Take this blog post for example.  It’s an assignment; I have to do it, but I hope people can spot my positivity and hints of sarcasm in this piece.    

After all of this, here’s what I got:

She is a passionate and dependable writer who will help others while remaining positive about herself and those she represents.

That’s me in 20 words.