Industry News, Mobile, This Week in Social Media
This Week in Social Media: A Social Network for Your Pet, Facebook and the 1st Amendment, “Twerking” on Google Trends, and more!
Sep 20 2013
This week in social media brought a new iOS update, an app just for you and your pet, Facebook “likes” gaining constitutional validity, the power of angry tweets, and the growth of searches for “twerking.”
By now you probably heard about and updated to iOS7 for your Apple devices. This new update brought an entire new look to Apple devices as well as improvements in multitasking and user-friendliness. Some of our favorite features include new camera features, automatically updating apps, and the pull-up settings tab. Check our latest blog post, “Why Apple iOS7 is Blowing My Mind,” to read more about what we find most useful.
Social networks are also updating their apps to accommodate the new system and making huge improvements. For example, Twitter now allows you to search for Tweets using Siri.
According to CNN, Facebook says that 83 Million (8.7%) accounts are fake but also that 2.4% of their monthly users are non-human personal accounts. Petigram, a new mobile app, is specifically for those looking to connect on a “lighthearted level” with pictures and posts about their pet.
Why does this matter to you?
If you are one who gets on daily to post or tweet about (or as) your pet, this would be a great app for you. Making a switch to Petigram will help you find others who share similar interests and probably prevent you from losing your friends who have seen enough of Fido on their Facebook page. Petigram is currently only available on iOS mobile devices.
Are pet owners your target market? It’s worth checking into advertising or creating a company profile on this app. If the obsession with cat pictures says anything, this app will do well.
When a sheriff from Virginia fired his deputy and five other employees for supporting a rival in a 2009 election via Facebook, the deputy sued saying that his “like” of the opponent’s Facebook page should be protected by the First Amendment. Initially, the Virginia US District Courts decided “liking” something was “insufficient speech to merit protection” but was later overturned by the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling read as such:
Liking’ something on Facebook expresses a clear message — one recognized by millions of Facebook users and non-Facebook users — and is both pure speech and symbolic expression that warrants constitutional protection
What does this mean for you?
We’re hoping that our readers wouldn’t make such drastic decisions purely based on a “like” but it’s becoming important to recognize who and what you’re connected with online. For personal branding purposes, make sure what people or brands you follow and like are complimenting the image you want to portray to the world.
A recent study of 70 million tweets showed that anger, compared to other emotions, is the most influential on Twitter. On average, anger spreads by 3 degrees meaning if you send an angry tweet, that is likely to “leak” into tweets of your followers, their followers, and even your followers’ followers.
Why is this important for your brand?
Customer service is becoming a 24/7 job with social media. Not only is having a presence on social networks important but also monitoring so you can eliminate any customer satisfaction issues before they spread throughout the Twitter-verse.
Google Trends is a facility of Google that allows you to search and see how often a word or phrase is “Googled” in various time frames and regions around the world. We thought we would end a Friday with some fun to see the search history of “twerking” and the person who brought this to everyone’s mind: Miley Cyrus. You can see the full page of statistics we found here from the last 12 months but up until Miley’s performance, the search for “twerking” was essentially non-existent – Miley’s search frequency was low until the “performance” as well (click to enlarge).
W
hy does this matter?
Well, Miley Cyrus and “twerking” doesn’t… but Google Trends can be extremely useful to your brand and SEO by showing a relative level of interest of the phrase or word. The geo-targeting will break down your search data by region which can come in handy for online marketing and promoting posts in certain areas that search for your product or service.
For more information and tips to boost your SEO, check out this great article: How to Use Google Trends for SEO.
Stop by next week for the latest news in social media. Any comments or suggestions? Let us know!
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