get with it: a guide to social media marketing

Thanks to Matt Stevenson for keeping it real.

When he was 5 years old, an Indian boy named Saroo was helping his older brother, who had a job sweeping up trash on Indian trains.  Tired, the young boy fell asleep.  When he woke up 14 hours later, he was in Calcutta.  That was in 1986.

Not knowing the name of his hometown or how to get there, Saroo wandered the train stations of Calcutta and survived through begging. After a year, he was taken in by an orphanage, and adopted by the Brierley family.  He spent the next 20 years growing up in Australia.

As he grew older, Saroo Brierley began searching for his hometown on Google Earth, keeping an eye out for landmarks he remembered.  He searched the satellite images of India for the waterfall he used to play in.  One day, he found it.

“When I found [Khandwa], I zoomed down and bang, it just came up. I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used to play.”

Saroo traveled to Khandwa and found the home where he used to reside.  He showed the residents a photo of himself as a child and asked for his family members by name.  A few minutes later, he was led to his mother.  It was February of 2012.

Countdown til this story is turned into a made-for-tv movie?  I’ll put 2 bucks on it.

Photo & Story Source: BBC

Post by Sarie Drake

Hooray, my roommate just became MORE annoying!

Klout, the company that measures a user’s online influence, released an app for the iPhone today.

The app will track K+s and feature real-time scoring, giving Klout users the ability to check their scores even more frequently.

This means even more “Yo Sarie, did you see that Kraft tweeted at me? My Klout score is gonna go krazy” and “MC Hammer follows me on Twitter, so I’m prolly gonna get sum new Klout perks in the mail.” (Yes, he really talks like Chet Haze.)

In reality, my roommate’s high Klout score has totally paid off when it comes to Klout perks. Just last week he got a big orange shoe box that included 2 books (do Klout users really read books?), a bookmark (wtf?), and an oversized t-shirt advertising Stephen King’s new book (wow).  

A month prior, he received a 3 oz. tube of Axe hair gel.  Yesss.

It’s like Klout is saying, hey you cocky nerds (the worst type of nerd), wanna get even less people to like you?  Tweet more, waste some time on our app, and then use the crap we send you!

It’s a win win.

Post by Sarie Drake

Ladies and gentleman, I give you the dumbest Twitter account ever.

Pictureless Pinterest: the best of Pinterest without having to look at the pictures.

Uh, yeah? Of course I follow them..

Like I said.. proud to be an American.

Well, another idiot has been made famous by Facebook.

Michael Baker of Jenkins, Kentucky, was arrested Monday for siphoning gas from a cop car.  

This 20 year-old mouth-breather would have gotten away with it too.. if he hadn’t posted a photo of the act on his Facebook page.

When the photo went viral, Jenkins police came knocking at Baker’s door. 

Of course, this hasn’t stopped Baker from updating his status.

Baker commented on his own status, saying (you might have to read this a few times to understand it), “yea lol u would just have to seen it it was funny as hell tho.”

Another day that I’m proud to be an American.

Not.

Post by Sarie Drake

Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant for the iPhone 4S, is in trouble.

A class action lawsuit against Apple has been filed by Frank M. Fazio (and friends), citing intentional misrepresentation and neglectful misrepresentation, among other things.  

The lawsuit states: 

Defendant’s advertisements regarding the Siri feature are fundamentally and designedly false and misleading.  Notwithstanding Apple’s extensive multi-million dollar advertising campaign showcasing the Siri feature, and the fact that the iPhone 4S is more expensive than the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S’s Siri feature does not perform as advertised, rendering the iPhone 4S merely a more expensive iPhone 4.

I’m not sure if a lawsuit was necessary, but Fazio is correct that Siri does not perform as advertised.  As an iPhone 4S owner myself, I will candidly say that Siri and I are not friends.  Her success ratio for my commands is about 1 to 5.  And no one should have to be okay with such a terrible by-product (except my parents).  
 

Gizimodo’s Mat Honan wrote steamed about his disappointment with Siri, saying:

“And for me, once the novelty wore off, what I found was that Siri is not so intelligent after all—it’s simply another voice program that will obey very specific commands. If it knows those commands. If it can understand you. And if it has a network connection. Were this Google, or Microsoft, I’d shrug. But it’s not, it’s Apple. And Apple is the company that sells perfection. It’s a company that usually keeps its promises, and in its Siri ads, it promises far more than what it actually delivers. That’s not what any of us signed up for.”

Straight up? Siri’s a b*tch. For instance, she and I had the following conversation earlier today. 

Me: Siri, set me an alarm for tomorrow at 7 a.m.
Siri: Okay, I made an appointment for tomorrow between “me and a lime.”  Are you ready for me to schedule it?
Me: No.
Siri: I do not understand “now”. To continue, you can Send, Cancel, Review, or Change it.
Me: Change.
Siri: I don’t understand “Change”?
Me: Goddammit Siri!
Siri: I didn’t quite get that.
Me: *inserts gun into mouth*

If I wanted an annoying and disobedient assistant, I would have kept paying that homeless girl to follow me around.

Post by Sarie Drake

And the world was never the same.

The ad copy reads:

And when the engineers were finally finished, they introduced us to a personal computer so personable, it can practically shake hands. 

They called it Macintosh.

According to this 1984 ad insert from Newsweek, Macintosh was attempting to reinvent the computer for personal use.

We put a pointer on the screen, and attached the pointer to a small, rolling box called a “mouse.”

I can just hear my 31 year-old mom’s head exploding all the way from 1984.  Hold on to your bowl cut, Young Mom; Macs are just getting started.

But don’t take our nerds for it!  Another page from the ad feature quotes from the three amigos of Macintosh, including baby Bill Gates (on the left).

So, Bill Gates is part of the original Wiggles?  This must have been before The Wiggles incorporated all the sexual choreography and the purple Asian Wiggle.
 

Post by Sarie Drake

Photo Source: Flickr

According to XKCD (a factually accurate statistics comic site), “Tumblr” will become a more common Google search phrase than “blog” before the end of the year.

Hey man, Newsweek and NPR are reblogging this graph, so it must be accurate, right?

Congrats, Tumblebums!
 

Now, before you go off saying, “What ridiculousness, my marketing strategy is genius! It’s not tricksy at all!  Everyone hates tanks!”  Please take note: The Oatmeal has 543 thousand likes on their Facebook page.  If that’s more than you have, I recommend you rethink your life social media strategy.

Maryland is now the first state to prohibit resident employers from requesting social media usernames and passwords from current and prospecitive employees.

Throughout the United States, job applicants have at times been asked to provide their log-in information to sites like Facebook, knowing they would not be considered for the job if they didn’t surrender those precious few characters.

The ACLU of Maryland brought to light the specific case of Robert Collins applying to a job with the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.  According the to the ACLU, “Collins had to sit there while the [interviewer] logged on to his Facebook account and reviewed his messages, wall posts and photos.”

Womp womp.  Can you imagine?  Here’s how that interview would go for me..

Interviewer: You’re password is fergiesucksTERDS42069?

Me: With “terds” in all caps, yes..

Interviewer: I see.  So it looks like your main focus in life is cats.  That’s what I’m seeing here.

Me: Uh, I mean, I do like cats.  I think cats are funny?  I guess.  But that’s not-

Interviewer: And you went to Ithaca College? I see very few photos of you studying during that time.

Me: Well yeah, I mean, no one took photos of study ses-

Interviewer: Your resume says you’re proficient in photoshop.  I see you’ve demonstrated that ability quite a few times on Facebook.  Did you make this photo of your boss marrying a cat?

Me: Heh.. yeah.. you see, he thinks cats are funny too-

Interviewer: I think we’re done here.

Illinois and California are next on the list of states considering such legislation.

So, this means that it’s still legal in New York?

*immediately deletes all information in Facebook account*

If my boss asks, I was never here.

Post by Sarie Drake

Today I was approached with a social media question:  ”Can you tell me about Pinterest?” 

Of course I can. I mean, I have ladyparts, don’t I?

But really, let’s not open that door. 

According to the digital marketing firm Experian, Pinterest is now the 3rd most popular social networking site in the United States. Experian’s report shows a 50% increase in traffic between January, when Pinterest had over 16 million unique viewers, and February.  

The Experian report does not include mobile traffic, which leads me to believe that the results could be quite inaccurate. (Because who uses a computer anymore?)

CEO and must-be-lesbian Ben Silbermann launched Pinterest in January of 2010, with the idea of a virtual scrapbook or pinboard on which one could proudly share one’s collections.

“When you open Pinterest, it should feel like someone has hand-made a book for you,” he explains. “Every item should feel like it’s handpicked for you by a person you care about.”

So yeah, if you enjoy looking at photos of weddings you’ll never afford or attend, baked goods you’ll never make, or crafts you’ll never create, you should check out Pinterest.  And find me when you’re there!  Username: SrslyNotADude_118.  

Don’t read into it.

Post by Sarie Drake