Twitter, advertising, television, and #secondscreen experience

I asked Mr. T.J. Adeshola, an account manager with Twitter, to speak with my Social Media class and he graciously agreed (T.J. and I were classmates together in graduate school at the University of Georgia- we even co-authored a paper about blogging).

I wanted to share some of his (wait for bad Twitter pun) “TWinsights” with you.

Adeshola, whose clients include ESPN (his former employer), Anheuser-Busch (parent company of Bud Light), and Forman-Brown (makers of Jack Daniels), among others, said that many of the brands he works with understand the importance of being in the social space but often want advice on how to execute best practices and content strategies.

Adeshola works with advertisers to amplify their messages on the platform using Twitter promoted products in the forms of promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends. While Twitter users want to know how to get verified and how to get more followers, brands are the same way, Adeshola said. They often utilize Twitter to broaden their follower base so that they can create a contingent brand advocates on the platform.

He said that the hashtag is “an aggregation of conversation” and as such no one can really “own” a hashtag per se.

There’s no specific number of tweets it takes in order to trend. “If there’s a huge event (i.e. Grammy’s) that day, it becomes more difficult for topics unrelated to that event to trend nationally. For example, there were over 24 million tweets during the Superbowl! As you can imagine, that much volume can make it difficult for a non-Super Bowl related hashtag to trend organically,” Adeshola said.

Adeshola said that companies try to incorporate social strategy as part of an overall integrated strategy (“to sprinkle some social juice on it,” as he puts it). Social shouldn’t be viewed as a singular approach, however, Adeshola cautioned.

“The idea is not to look at all social channels as one big platform,” he said. “You guys go to Facebook for different reasons than you go to Twitter, or for different reasons than you go to Pinterest or for different reasons than you go to Instagram and that’s something everybody needs to keep in mind at all times. When you’re looking at types of engagement that occur on Twitter, they’re different than the types of engagement that occur on Facebook.”

Aware of the prevalence and influence of TV and how many shows are already using Twitter hashtags to promote their shows, Adeshola said that Twitter provides the perfect “second screen” experience for viewers.

“We believe that we are the ideal second screen experience so with that we are the perfect extension of television, so if BudLight Platinum has a commercial and they say Make It Platinum, which is a hashtag they utilize, Twitter is the destination for conversation around the advertisement, so our goal is to step in as a companion and help amplify these initiatives,” Adeshola said.

The Bird is ever mindful to not just be a “one trick pony” so the popular Social Networking Site is looking to evolve the platform and services with television a natural place for future synergies, Adeshola said.

“Shows want an extension of their show to live elsewhere,” he said. “They want companion interaction, they want companion engagement. The great thing about that is that Pretty Little Liars might end, but the hashtag that’s used within the show organizes all of the related conversations on Twitter, so it’s really the perfect play for advertisers, marketers and content providers alike.”

Note: I’m cross-posting this on geoffreygraybeal.com AND my Social Media Class’ Digital & Social Media Literacy blog.

Life’s a Derailment: On Train Wrecks, Social Media and Language

Metro North pass from New Haven to New York.

Last week’s train wreck in Bridgeport, Conn. literally and figuratively hit close to home. Since moving to Hartford last August, I’ve become a de facto part time New Yorker. I’ve probably ridden the New Haven to Grand Central Terminal Metro-North line and back close to 40 times. In fact, I took that same Metro North line into The City on Thursday afternoon, about 24 hours before the two trains collided. If a colleague from Georgia had not invited me to a Yankees game on Saturday I could have just as easily been on one of the trains that got derailed. As it was, the only thing that got derailed were my return plans. Nevertheless, I thought I’d share a few observations from my 80 hours in New York this past weekend.

SLOMO: There are different cute acronmyns like “SLOMO” to describe the current era of (news?) media as one that should focus on Social, Local and Mobile. This focus bore out during the train crash. I first learned of news of the Connecticut train collision on Friday afternoon through a push notification to my iPhone through my Associated Press (AP) Mobile APP. One of the ways journalists use social media is to find local sources for a given topic. Over the weekend, I saw numerous tweets from my local newspaper, the Hartford Courant, looking for Connecticut residents who regularly commute to New York for work willing to speak with a reporter for a story he was working on. I first learned about cancellations in train service from New York to New Haven (and all the way to Boston) through Metro North’s Twitter account (it was a retweet of an Amtrak announcement). Social? Check. Local? Check. Mobile? Check.

User-Generated Content: A group of teenagers were skateboarding at the nearby Rampage skateboard park when the two trains collided. They skated to the scene of the wreck and recorded the powerful footage of the crash you see below (warning: foul language). Many news outlets reported and linked to this footage, as is common to supplement traditional reporting with so-called user-generated content (UGC), particularly for breaking news stories.

Language and Word Choice Matters: My first 48 hours in New York were wonderful. I went to an excellent panel discussion on excellence in television at the Paley Center, reconnected with former students and colleagues from the University of Georgia, had drinks with my favorite Bloomberg reporter and explored new areas of the city in three Boroughs (walked the High Line in Manhattan, visited the Museum of Moving Images in Queens and took in the sunset at DUMBO in Brooklyn). The rest of the weekend went poorly. My friend’s flight got delayed so I went to the Yankees game solo. The Friday derailment left me semi-stranded and scrambling to find a way home. This meant I had to miss graduation at the University of Hartford on Sunday so I was deprived seeing my students’ crowning achievement and celebrating a wonderful year with colleagues. And it rained all day Sunday. When people asked how my weekend went, I found myself starting to respond with a phrase like “oh, it was a train wreck.” Or “it was a disaster.” But in light of an actual disaster of a train wreck, such common hyperbole that we use in our everyday language seems silly and ridiculous. The reality is I just had a bad day. Plain and simple.

Roll with the Punches: Even the best laid plans can go to waste. I took an Amtrak train from Hartford to New Haven and then hopped onto Metro North. After the train wreck (the real one), I was no longer able to get back to New Haven on Sunday to catch my return trip on Amtrak back to Hartford. No graduation for me. I was one of the hundreds? thousands? of folks in New York whose means out of the city were disrupted. I had to scramble to get a late bus back to Hartford. My Georgia colleague’s flight to New York got delayed so he had to miss the Yankees game. As work was being done on the Subway stop where I was staying, I had to figure out how to navigate the New York subway system. I didn’t see everyone I wanted to. I didn’t do everything I wanted to do. But in the end that’s life. Life is full of tiny derailments. We laugh about it. Smile about it. Find a new way home. And move on.

Presenting on a Grand Stage

After presenting at the International Symposium on Online Journalism last week, I wanted to share some takeaways/tips on how academics can make a more engaging presentation (particularly on a grand stage like ISOJ). I could easily title this blog post “Presentation Tips (Do What I Say, Not What I Did).”

ISOJ brings together some of the world’s leading journalists, news execs, journalism scholars and students. For the most part, the non-academics delivered far more engaging, dynamic memorable presentations than the academics (myself included). Academics are accustomed to presenting research to a small group of peers deeply entrenched in a core subject area. ISOJ is a whole different ballgame. The crowd is large (350+ in attendance, plus thousands more watching on two livestreams- one in English, one in Spanish). The audience is diverse (people from 30 different countries were present and a mix of different professions as previously noted). The coverage is intense (expect to be tweeted, recorded, blogged about and so forth).

Academics who get the privilege of presenting on this grand stage (acceptance rates are low so it truly is an honor to be selected) should heed the following advice, IMHO:
 
1)Forget the standard academic format. Yes, you’ll want to talk about the background, your research questions and what your findings are, but doing so shouldn’t follow the standard cookie cutter approach that non-academics either don’t understand or eyes glaze over at the verbose language.
 
2)Own the Stage: If you’re like me, you’re used to hiding behind the podium. The podium is a place to see the complex underpinnings of the research you’re describing, or place notes/talking points. Most of the non-academics owned the stage. They stood out front and center with the big screen behind them, much like you often find at a TED talk.

Make Like Don Draper: Channel your inner “Mad Men” when making a presentation. The fictional ad man is brilliant at making a pitch.

 
3)Be Tweetable. Have at least one “killer quote” that’s short, memorable and likely to be tweeted- and shared (getting your message to a wider audience).

David Ho of The Wall Street Journal had at least two such moments:

“The first step in thinking mobile first is don’t think mobile last,” he said.

 ”The mouse is dead,” he also declared

Longtime Guardian staffer Emily Bell made a great NBA analogy for journalism, declaring “The power has gone from the league to the franchise to the individual.”

Deseret Media CEO Clark Gilbert had a great line about disruption rendering really smart people completely incapable.

4)Think Visually. Graphics and visual imaging tell a story and are more compelling and engaging than text-heavy slides (we all know not to use a bunch of texts but the standard academic study privileges findings).
 
5)Know Your Audience: A typical academic conference is to a small group of scholarly peers that know the subject you’re talking about. At ISOJ you have a mix of students, scholars, journalists and managers from industry and the academy. Keep your language simple and stay on message. Tell a cohesive story in whatever short amount of time you have to do so.
 
6)Show Passion and Personality: Yes, we’re discussing serious matters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also have fun in doing so. The Washington Post’s Joey Marburger explained how the Tardis time machine from the long-running television series Doctor Who is an example of how mobile devices connect people to the rest. Even Jill Abramson, the executive editor of The New York Times, responded to a question by saying “Whoomp There It Is” (which naturally prompted a tweet with a link to the Tag Team video). Don’t be afraid to use humor in your talk or to show a lighter, more personable side.

In looking back at the video of my presentation, I #fail(ed) to do most of these. After two presentations at ISOJ, I’m confident that the third time will be the charm.  I look forward to the next time I get the opportunity to take the stage in Austin and some stellar presentations from ISOJ2014.

Crowdsourcing Social Media curriculum

I’m excited to be teaching a special topics communications course on Social Media next spring at the University of Hartford, where I’m a Visiting Assistant Professor. I have big things planned. We’ll have some exciting guest speakers.  We’ll take a field trip to a television show.  We’ll engage on social media platforms (create social media). We’ll study social media (scholarship of social media). We’ll learn about how others are using social media (an overview of social media). And we’ll become more literate social media consumers (digital and social media literacy).

We’ll read some danah boyd, some Lee Rainie, some Clay Shirky, some Howard Rheingold.  For about a month or so we’ll flip the classroom. We’ll likely tweet and liveblog and engage in a dialogue about social media on social media platforms. We’ll create a diary of our social media consumption.  It’s going to be a fun, demanding, exhilirating semester.  And it all starts in about a month.

But before we begin that journey I’d like to invite you to go to digitalandsocialmedialiteracy.wordpress.com and offer suggestions that will benefit the class and my students.

Thanks for your input.

 

Red & Dead Diffusion, Disruption & Social Dissemination

There’s a lot that could be said and a ton that has been already been written about the departures of student editors from UGA’s independent student newspaper, The Red & Black.  I’ll keep my opinions to myself on many of the crazy twists and turns in this two day saga that has unfolded.

What I will say and do want to chime in on is The Red and Dead.  One year ago, The Red & Black went to a “digital first” publishing format, significantly scaling back its print coverage in the process and focusing on creating a “24/7″ news operation in line with what many professional newspapers have done.  (In the interest of disclosure, I taught many of the student editors and reporters who led the digital first charge in the past year although I certainly cannot take any credit for their stellar efforts in doing so).

Given the R&B students’ deep dive into the digital ”revolution” a year ago, it is not surprising that the former staffers (and presumably soon to be current again R&B staffers) went about creating an alternative digital news operation within minutes after walking out the door of the paper’s Baxter Street office.

I was mostly impressed by the “digital first” reporting and the use of social media in disseminating the story of their stand for journalism ethics that the staff of the Red and Dead displayed.  Within two days, the Red & Black ex-pats created an online operation that could have proven a formidable student-run rival for their former employer.  Most importantly, they went about reporting news and covering the university community.

As of this afternoon, the RedandDead Twitter account had 3,776 followers and had put out 284 tweets and the group had a Facebook page with 3,298 “likes.”  The Red & Black Twitter page has close to 15,000 followers but has been in operation for a few years.  To develop a sizable following and create a digital news outlet run from an apartment within two days is laudable.

The use of social media to disseminate news of the situation at the Red&Black was also another admirable takeaway from this otherwise ugly incident.  Social media helped give the story “legs” as some famous nationally known journalists such as ESPN’s Rick Reilly and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King even tweeted about it.  National publications wrote about the story, including The New York Times and The Huffington Post, as did national groups like the Student Press Law Center and Associated Collegiate Press.

There’s a lot more that can be gleaned from this episode and I’ll leave that to future research, ponderings, blog posts and class discussions.  I’m certainly glad there appears to be an amicable resolution.

Kudos to the student journalists for applying their digital first reporting and social media skills so successfully.

Digital & Social Media Literacy

For the next two weeks, I’m teaching a college-level “Digital & Social Media Literacy” course to high school juniors and seniors through the University’s Pre-College Summer Program.  I decided to create a public blog for the course that can serve as a resource and area of discussion for others interested in the areas of digital media literacy, social media literacy or just digital & social media in general.  I’ll continue to add content to the site throughout the year, after the summer course ends.  I’m teaching a special topics course on Social Media at the University of Hartford next spring and the blog will be a resource and starting point for students enrolled in that course as well.  I’d encourage you to check out the blog and join the conversation.

For the course, I decided to focus the first week on “thinking” about digital & social media, exploring themes, concepts and ideas of digital & social media literacy, disruption and displacement, impact on traditional media, social networks, social media, youth culture, and participatory culture.  I gleaned ideas for readings and assignments from the work of communication scholars Howard Rheingold, Serena Carpenter, and Greg Downey and past syllabi of “social media” courses taught by Barry Hollander and Karen Russell here at UGA.

The second week of my course will focus more on “doing,” the creation and consumption of content through forms and platforms of digital and social media. I’ve been teaching some form of these “week two” assignments, through my “Media & Message: Communicating in the Digital Age” Duke TIP @ UGA summer course, or through my News Editing course, the past three years.  I would be remiss if I did not mention the work of Mark Johnson in advancing the teaching of digital literacies here in the Grady College the past few years.

Developing Digital & Social Media literacies are important and I’m honored to have the opportunity to join others in advancing the cause through teaching and scholarship.

Social branding today: Too early or too late?

I was recently interviewed for an article about social branding on a blog site focused on public relations.  I thought I would share my full answers with my blog followers as well.  Enjoy!

Q: Does social branding have an age? For example, is it ever too late or too early to start?

A: Setting aside the issue of when is an appropriate age to begin using various forms of social media (which parents should set for their
children), I do not believe it is ever too early or too late to start social branding.  In fact, as soon as you begin using social media you
should be conscientious of how your actions on those sites and others you communicate with contribute to your overall digital identity.

The next step, of course, is to actively manage your social identity and to begin to shape your social brand.  I would argue that to some
extent children become familiar with social branding of their virtual selves as soon as they begin using social games.  For example, young
children on Club Penguin develop a branded penguin persona, children of all ages on Nintendo Wii and other games develop virtual avatars,
and so forth and so on. This study suggests that children as young as 11 start building their personal brand on social sites.
Whatever age you are, if you are actively using social media sites then you should start developing your social brand.  Of course,
developing a specific niche or areas of interest, even at a young age, work best to develop your brand.  I taught students as young as 12 in
my Duke TIP summer studies’ digital media course how to identify an area they’re passionate about and begin to build a social brand around
that topic, through blogging and use of social networking sites.  One teenage student created an online publication to cover teenage issues
in her hometown of Staunton, West Virginia.  Two other students with an interest in sports began to build up their brand presence as
experts in sports.  Regardless of age, building a social brand can help establish your expertise in certain subject matters.

Q: With evolving technology and social media, do you think we will ever brand ourselves correctly?

A: Just as technologies evolve, our personal brands may change as we change and evolve.  When I was in high school, I was a sportswriter
for a local weekly newspaper.  I also worked part time at an Italian ice store.  One basketball coach called me “scoop” because of my print
sports reporting (but the nickname also worked because I scooped Italian ice).  My personal brand revolved around sportswriting and
print news reporting.  I was known in my networks as a sports writer and a journalist.

When I was in college, I was a youth page editor for the daily newspaper’s teen section.  My brand revolved around youth media and
features writing.  After I graduated college, I covered Orange and Chatham counties in North Carolina so I was branded as a local
reporter.

During my graduate studies and time at Georgia, my brand has evolved to that of expert in social & digital media strategy, media
sustainability and journalism innovation.

For individuals, sometimes less is more.  Just because a new social media tool or platform develops doesn’t mean you have to use it.  In
some instances, it may not make sense to do so.  The biggest thing we advise corporate clients is to have an overall social media strategy
that ties to your brand strategy and overall objectives.  The same applies to individuals.  The biggest challenge is to either integrate
the different social media presences to a unified brand presence and/or to use the different social media outlets accordingly.  For example, I’ve chosen to use my Twitter presence for a mix of professional and personal purposes, often tweeting about journalism topics, social media and social media marketing, communicating with friends and students and opining on topics I’m passionate about such as Carolina basketball and food.  Facebook, meanwhile, for me is mostly for personal use.

Q: Any other thoughts about how social media is affecting branding with younger audiences.

A: Social media knows no boundaries or age limits for the potential to breakout among the masses.  Young people have become overnight
sensations (ala Rebecca Black for “Friday”) or bona fide celebrities (Justin Bieber), with the discovery fueled through the use of social media.  The good news for young people is that they can get a message out, brand themselves as experts in a particular topic they’re passionate about or convey their talents to the masses.  And they can do that now, at 12, or 13, or 14.  Or whatever age. They don’t have to wait to develop a social brand for themselves.  The downside, and the danger, is that one mistake or social media misstep can irreparably harm their social brand. Think of the “Star Wars” kid that became a viral video sensation.  The “leave Britney alone” YouTube guy. The teenage girl whose father put 9 bullets in her computer for a Facebook  post complaining about his parenting.

For younger audiences who are digital natives (born 1985 or later), I would argue that they have grown up with and are familiar with social media platforms on a personal level.  That is to say they know how to use social media to communicate with friends and for fun in their personal lives.  But most young people I’ve encountered have not thought about the larger issues associated with social and digital media.  They are not fully social media or digital media literate in the sense of an awareness of the processes and effects of those technologies-the business purposes of social media, how politicians, governments, celebrities, even law enforcement are using social media platforms and the larger issues social media raise in a socially connected society.

 

“Learning and leaving footprints:” on Rascals & Pals

In every class I have taught since coming to grad school, I have paid tribute on the first day to the UNC journalism professors who inspired me to want to teach journalism.

Jim Shumaker.

Chuck Stone.

Raleigh Mann.

Now, to this list of lions I will add the name of a truly legendary University of Georgia journalism professor.  This man not only reaffirmed my commitment to the calling to teach, but served as a model for what I should strive to become both in and out of the classroom.

Conrad Fink.

Fink, the former foreign correspondent and newspaper executive turned J-school icon, died Saturday after a courageous 20-year battle with prostate cancer.

As I and the rest of the Grady College family mourn the loss of Professor Fink, I am proud to count myself among the legions of Finkites or Finksters whose career was touched by a man whose stature and reputation (like his signature bushy eyebrows) seemed larger than life.

Fink was a mentor, a colleague and a friend.  Fink was and in many ways still is the heart and soul of Grady College.

One of the last occassions I saw Professor Fink,  in his office about a month ago, he was reflective of his life’s work.  He said that he felt fortunate to have had not one, but two, long, successful meaningful careers.  

Fink was the consummate journalist.  I’ve never met a man or woman who loved or cared for the newspaper industry and journalism profession as much or as deeply as Fink did.

 But teaching was Fink’s true calling and where he left his greatest mark.

Look at what Fink wrote in his teaching statement, included in the application material for one of the University system’s highest teaching honors:

For although as a journalist I touched thousands–millions, perhaps, on big stories I covered–my touch was fleeting, the impressions I left soon were washed over by bigger stories that always came rolling along.

In teaching, I found, my touch could be formative, truly meaningful, truly lasting. And isn’t that–learning and leaving footprints–what a creative, rewarding life should be all about?

Fink definitely lived a creative, rewarding life and left behind meaningful footprints. Fink’s impact has been seen by the “rascals” and “pals” he left behind.  There have been many blog posts, newspaper articles, columns, tweets and Facebook rememberances written and shared by Fink’s students, colleagues and friends.

Fink’s reach was far.  Fink affectionately called his students “rascals.”  In this oral history project interview (around the 31:17-33 minute mark on the audio file available by clicking “listen to the full interview” link above the embedded video– I’d recommend the listen, Fink’s warmth and humor comes across in this clip), Fink tells the students, “I’m on a mission to convert rascals to journalists.”

Mission accomplished, pal.

Micropayments and the gift of laughter

If you are a regular reader of my site, you know that I’m an advocate of micropayments, which are defined as online purchases of $5 or less.  Given the $5 pricing point as the threshold for micropayments, that means that comedian Louis C.K.’s recent DRM-free direct-sales video experiment can be classified as a successful micropayment sale.

One of the biggest backlashes/criticisms/questions my colleague Jameson Hayes and I get about our “Modified News Micropayment Model” (MNMM) and our “Modified Media Micropayment Model” (4M) is about cheating.  In other words, what is to stop people from stealing the content that others must pay for?  Our answer is that microearning is designed to prevent that, but we’re pleased to know that even without microearning, Louis C.K. reports that few people have stolen the video.  Louis C.K. was on Leno (in the video embedded below) talking about his successful micropayment experiment and the lack of people stealing the video (starts around the 2 minute mark).

And if you like Louis C.K. and need a last minute gift idea, I’d recommend the $5 video direct from the comedian.

Enjoy, and Happy Holidays! 

http://www.hulu.com/embed/nbd_NTqv5f9NgwRX-SzwVg

Brand Messaging & Digital Transformation

I’ve noticed that as I’ve progressed in my career as a scholar, I tend to see research all around me in my everyday life.  My scholarship centers on questions of media sustainability, particulary how legacy media outlets are making digital transformations.  And so the van I saw recently while driving in Raleigh traffic stood out for me as a classic example of illustrating what I’ve been studying and teaching for the last few years.

As companies tied to “old ways” of doing business seek to transform their business for the digital age, the brand remains an integral component to making a successful switch.  Classic marketing and management concepts such as brand positioning and brand messaging are important strategies to employ as change agents.

Now, back to the van and how it fits in.  The yellow van I spotted was for “YP.com” and touted the features of search on its powerful local directory.  The back of the van featured a generic smartphone image and a generic computer image and touted the benefits of these new digital products.

Of course, YP.com is the latest branding for YellowPages, long known for its big, bulky telephone book directories.  The very name YellowPages conjures images of its print origins.  The old logo I recall from my childhood consisted of fingertips flipping through those signature yellow pages.  This is a company and a business model clearly disrupted by the Internet.

And thus, to survive, to remain a sustainable operation, YellowPages has adapted.  The new brand identity, YP.com, conjures an entirely different image.  For starters, the digital identity- the .com, is now in the name.  Secondly, the references to the print identity (pages) is removed from the new branding effort.

And the brand messaging?  All about digital products.  You, the consumer, can access the YP.com local search directory online (cue generic computer) or on your phone (cue generic phone logo) through an app.  Those print pages from the big old phone books?  Nowhere in sight.  The name Yellow Pages?  Not on this van.

This is  a simple example of a case study on brand messaging and digital transformation.  A real world application of a “textbook” approach.  Spotted on a van while stuck in holiday traffic.