Your Musical Discoveries

The recently launched Twitter #Music provides users with a new music experience.  While it does offer the ability for listeners to enjoy popular music, it also promotes emerging artists.  On a social media platform as widely used as Twitter, this feature will undoubtedly allow new artists to get more recognition than they would have with local shows and even their own website.  The app also has a suggestions page based on the music choices you make.  The user interface is easy to use and links directly to Spotify or Rdio so the user can listen to full songs - without switching apps.  Twitter #Music is still in the early stage of discovery for many Twitter users.  However, once the music starts, it’ll be hard to stop. 

Your Newest Group Member

You’re three hours into a meeting with your classmates working on a project and it’s getting late. Your patience is dwindling and the creative juices aren’t flowing as freely when all of a sudden – your stomach starts to growl. GroupMe has a solution.

A recent update allows members of a group to participate in its Split Cost feature. Money can be collected from everyone in the group to chip in for the pizza everyone is so desperately craving. With a simple credit card transaction, each share can be paid to the kind individual who pays for the pizza upfront. The additional costs are minimal at only 4% plus $0.99 for each transaction. Once every member has chipped in, the Split creator can choose to collect. This GroupMe feature can be used for tons of situations and is super convenient when people don’t have cash. 

Your Next Significant Other

Why sign up and pay for dating websites when you may just meet someone special within your existing social network?  While it may seem like a stretch, countless couples have enjoyed this fate through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Tumblr, and even Flickr. 

The internet is riddled with stories of these by-chance encounters and the series of events that led to a relationship.  While you may think of social media as a way to express yourself, something to keep you occupied when bored, or a way to stay connected with your favorite brands, don’t rule out the possibility of something more.  You never know when a follow, like, post, repin, or blog comment could spark a conversation with a potential prospect. 

That being said, take a minute to ask yourself: are you portraying yourself on social media as the type of person you want the person you’re looking for to be looking for? 

Your Digital Footprint Now Fits In One Shoe

Whether you like it or not, it’s time to face the facts: you will be searched online before someone interviews or hires you.  And if we’re being honest, at the rate society is moving, possibly even before someone chooses to date you.  So, what do you want them to see?

You probably manage a number of personal social media platforms that portray almost every aspect of your life in one way or another.  But what if there was a way to link all your social media accounts to one place and create a multidimensional, interactive, graphical biography that conveys only the best of you?  Now, there is.  It’s called Vizify.

The name was formed from the combination of visualizing, realizing and clarifying: three things that can help turn your digital footprint into your definitive personal brand.  Vizify allows you to customize your profile to showcase your experiences, social media activity, achievements, interests, pictures and even quirks.  It can provide graphical representations of how often you tweet along with the tweets themselves and what trends you use most frequently.  You can have a looping map showing the places you grew up, went to school and have worked.  The site also allows you to add pages such as your professional story, places you check in to, other platforms where you can be found on the web and more.

Vizify is likely to soon be on the first page of Google search results.  A profile on Vizify allows you to present both your personal and professional identity in the best way possible.  If the barrier between these two identities still exists even a little bit, it surely won’t for long.  Stay on top of your digital footprint and look into creating your own Vizify profile that so you are ready with your best foot forward. 

Your Creative Job Application

At exactly two months old, Vine is quickly gaining momentum and exposure in the social media arena.  The free mobile app allows users to create and post looped video clips up to 6 seconds long that can be shared on several social networking sites.  Users have been swift in finding unique uses for this new platform, including using it a “resume.”

While one can’t convey everything included on a written resume in a 6 second video, it does allow for the creator to grab the attention of a hiring manager and possibly intrigue him or her enough to extend an offer for an initial interview.  This idea gives a new meaning to the 30-second “elevator pitch.” 

Vine offers an opportunity for distinctive visual content and even storytelling in a matter of seconds.  Used as a “resume,” it’s a way to set a job-seeker apart from the sea of candidates vying for the same job.  Showing creativity and innovation through Vine could be what gets you in the door ahead of others.  

Your Post Intention May Not Be Good Enough

The South Beach Wine and Food Festival hosted by The Food Network Channel features big-ticket events sponsored by even bigger brands.  Events range from intimate settings to parties with hundreds of fans in attendance.  I experienced several of these styles of events at SoBe Fest this past weekend.  While making sure to absorb every special aspect of the extravagant, I was closely connected to social media the entire weekend- including the SOBEWFF Facebook page. 

Prior to the start of the weekend, the wall was being filled with anticipatory, excited posts by those with tickets or those hoping to score a ticket to any event at all.  However, on Sunday at 6PM a post was made by the page admin that stated it was “time to say goodbye” as the Guy Fieri and Ziggy Marley closing ceremony started up.  A short 40 minutes later (while at the event!) attendees were responding with negative, and even angry, comments about the over-filled capacity of the event.  One Facebook user writes, “In line, too long…”  These types of comments continued as people expressed their extreme disappointment with the experience and how they won’t be returning again.  

The influence of the initial Facebook post, while intending to generate excitement, backfired in such a way that could have negative affects on attendance to #SOBEWFF events in the future.  Social media tends to have a mind of its own.  Or, should I say, the mind of millions- all who read, process and write in unique ways.  Social media professionals are palpably aware of this dynamic environment and work to manage it as best they can.  However, users can are known to burn intentions and add their own seasonings. 

Your Thirty Seconds of Fame

Thirty seconds is barely enough time to search for and find a video, but it’s all the time you need to be entertained by the Harlem Shake.  Skyrocketing in popularity and quantity on YouTube, the videos last only for about thirty seconds.  From the armed forces to a Greenpeace office in Stockholm to the UGA Men’s Swim and Dive teams, groups are getting together to create their own rendition. 

In the last fifteen days, nearly 15,000 of these videos have been produced and that number continues to grow.  Several videos have taken off in popularity and been featured on news and late night television programs.  Each video builds anticipation until half way through when the beat drops and the whole room is going wild.  Having been referred to as 2013’s “Gangnum Style,” these videos are likely to become even more popular before the trend dies down. 

The imaginative plots of these videos continue to become more and more creative as the trend picks up speed.  Just like “Call Me Maybe” videos once were in the spotlight, we’re now in the era of the Harlem Shake.  Fifteen days have brought us this far.  Anticipations are high for what crazy twists will we be entertained by in the next fifteen. 

Your Taste Buds Tuned Into Social Media

The excitement conjured by social media is often all-encompassing and over the top.  In some cases, it can even make your mouth water.  The South Beach Wine and Food Festival’s array of social media tactics do just this.

Between their Facebook and Twitter posts, they are able to build anticipation through visual aids and descriptive narratives of what an attendee will experience.  This not only creates a unified buzz across social media sites, but on an individual basis as well.  The excitement among all those planning to attend prompts the promotion of the event by individuals.  As a Facebook friend or Twitter follower is mine, you would know that my sweet tooth is most eager for the Godiva Indulge event.

In addition, the Food Network’s YouTube channel offers videos of events and photo galleries of last year can be viewed and shared via Flickr.  Being able to see what past attendees have experienced stimulates the strong desire to be present this year.   The variety of social media approaches allows consumers to see how swanky, luxurious and appetizing the events will be.  They have my mouth watering already.

The 10 day countdown starts today as my taste buds attempt to prepare themselves for some of the most delicious food ever produced by the Food Network channel’s most famous culinary artists. 

Your Official Source of Bachelor Wisdom

Went to get another much needed scoop of Double Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream during a television show and don’t have DVR.  Never fear.  Just check your Twitter feed to catch up on anything interesting you may have missed.  Not surprisingly, this experience is witnessed on significant events such as Inauguration Day and Super Bowl Sunday.  However, it is also carried through in prime form on Bachelor Mondays. 

For the 2 hour period of show time and beyond, Bachelor watchers tweet constantly about the spectrum of events happening on the show in real time.  In fact, one could essentially have her television turned off and be able to keep pace with every juicy detail through her Twitter feed. 

@BachelorABC uses tactics throughout the week, as well as during the show, to create buzz and entice viewers to tune in.  By soliciting viewer opinions and pictures of fans’ “watching parties,” ABC engages dedicated Bachelor lovers everywhere. 

However, what would the Bachelor be without a little chemistry and a limo-full of drama?  While ABC does maintain an interactive and promotional feed, we must all say a little “Thank You” to the Twitter universe for the creation of the @TierrasEyebrow account.  Viewers are arguably more tuned into their Twitter feeds than the show as they become more and more entertained by the antics of their friends’ and anon accounts that offer witty, laugh-out-loud tweets. 

Not a member of the Bachelornation?  First off, your loss.  Secondly, be sure to stay away from Twitter from 8-10 PM on Monday nights, else have your feed be consumed with #Bachelor and #Tierrable hashtags.  But realize- nonetheless- that history is being made here, people, both in the Twitter social media arena and in the heart of the finest Bachelor of all time. 

Your Social Footprint of Support

The days when children would whine, throw temper tantrums, cry and plead incessantly to get something they wanted are becoming few and far between.  Instead, children old enough to work a computer mouse have discovered a new means of getting their way.  Their approach doesn't involve tears, kicking or screaming.  They only need a Facebook account and an admirable cause.

What seemed like an insurmountable goal set forth by an unsuspecting father quickly escalated into a viral campaign created by a couple of preteen sisters and their younger brothers in attempts to get a puppy.  The siblings posted a picture requesting 1 million likes in order for their dad to grant their request.  A mere 13 hours later, the picture had over 1.7 million likes, 140,000 shares and 40,000 comments wishing them well. 

Social media tactics, such as this, are rapidly growing in popularity.  “XYZ organization will donate 10 cents for every Like on this post.”  “If you want to stop animal cruelty, Like and Share this picture.”  The causes behind these Facebook epidemics vary widely, but they all have a key characteristic in common.

People want to know that others care.  That we’re all tied by human instinct to want the best for people.  Whether it’s an individual, community, or business.  Whether it’s something trivial or monumental in importance.  Whether you’re one of the first people to Like a post or you’re the Like that pushes it over the milestone.  A gesture as simple and immediate as liking a post connects us instantly to others.  It can prove that we’re not alone, that our hopes are shared- even by strangers.  They are strangers that we will most likely never get to thank individually or even lay eyes on in person. 

Confirmation that others are behind our initiative, providing their support through the click of a mouse or a few strokes on the keyboard, amplifies sense of purpose.  While it takes an army of people to rack up a million+ Likes on Facebook, it starts with the individual decision to click.  And long after you've forgotten you clicked Like on a post, you’re social footprint of support will remain.