Hootsuite Certified

Hootsuite Certified

Not even being “Facebook Official” as ever made me feel as official as being Hootsuite Certified. I received my Hootsuite Certificate this weekend and now I feel reasonably qualified to perform any social media task. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration… But I do feel qualified to monitor social media for company, which is a small accomplishment in itself.

I have been using Hootsuite for about a year now. I started when an internship I held asked me to update their multiple Twitter accounts. So when i learned about becoming certified I thought it might be a waste of time. Like, excuse me, I know all I need to know!

As usual, I was wrong.

Benefits of becoming Hootsuite Certified:

• Learn all tricks you can do with Hootsuite
• Learn how Hootsutie can assist with multiple social media platforms
• Begin thinking like a social media professional
• Learn how to effectively create your brand presence on social media
• Let professionals know you’re Hootsuite Certified- You are capable of monitoring their social media platforms
• Feel like a boss

I honestly can’t say enough good things about Hootsuite. It makes life easier, and it only takes two seconds to sign up. If you want an edge up on your resume, get certified- Hootsuite Certified.

 

Dear Social Media, I believe we have a crisis

What is a social media crisis?

a.) When your ex- bestfriend hacks your Facebook page?

b.) When Twitter exceeds it’s limit and you can’t refresh your timeline?

c.) Any issue that arises in social media or that becomes amplified by social media and results in a negative impact on stakeholders, brand reputation, brand bottom line, or a client.

Surprise! The answer is C.

A social media crisis is any event or issue that arises within a company, organization, or for a celebrity via social media that poses negative risks to the brand. With social media growing as quickly as it is, a social media crisis is close to inevitable. All a crisis takes is one customer/ user of the brand expressing negative content about a brand on a social media platform. If not addressed properly, the content is liable to spread like wildfire. However, there are varying levels to a social media crisis.

There are 5 stages to a social media crisis:

It all begins with a triggered event. This event could be unprofessional conduct, an offensive social media update, or a comment from a disgruntled customer. Through social media this event is amplified, which means others have become outraged by the incident as well. By this time, the brand at fault needs to respond with an apology or explanation. You want to make sure that the whole brand is on board with a single message being sent. Soon you will find a few parodies, a couple of articles making light of the situation and addressing the concerning event with humor. By this time you can assume that the incident is blowing over. As a company you should learn from the experience and set new policies to prevent this situation from reoccurring in the future.

Newly added to the Olympics: the Harlem Shake

As you might have guessed, the Harlem Shake is not actually going to be added to the Olympics, sorry for any confusion. But it might as well be with the dance craze taking the interests of our sport teams across the nation. From cheer leaders to basketball players to swim and dive, all the way to their favorite fans, everyone is doing the Harlem Shake.

The Louisville Men’s basketball team, University of Georgia Men’s swim and dive, University of Florida’s Cheer team, and the University of Pitt are just a couple of the schools to get involved. That’s not even including the schools with regular undergraduate videos jumping on the bandwagon. And none of this has even taken into consideration the celebrities getting involved.

So how does such an old dance gain so much attention? Social Media.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Harlem Shake at some point or another. It’s a shimmying of the shoulders and throwing of the arms back and forth while keeping them down by your side- with a lot of personal swag, of course. This dance alone, however, is not what’s generated this buzz.

Harlem Shake is the latest dub-step single of Baauer, a 22 yr. old DJ out of Brooklyn. Yes, a 22 yr. old dropped a single that is currently sweeping the nation. The sensational beat hit Youtube after a couple of guys decided to make a video dancing to the song. What you do is have one person, usually masked or something of the sort, dancing alone among lots of people ignoring him. Then, when the beat drops and you hear “do the harlem shake”, the video cuts and the room is filled with people doing the harlem shake. And now everyone is competing for the best video.

Why has it hit athletics so big? One answer, competition. Teams refuse to miss out on an opportunity to jump on a stunt like this. The real competition isn’t who will do it better, it’s who will get their video out first ahead of the curve.

The power of social media is unwavering. I’ve posted below a couple of my personal favorite sport videos of the newest trend. Among them, UGA Men’s swim and Dive underwater and the Louisville Men’s Basketball team who interrupts their coach to start the dance.

Stranger, Future Employer

I am confused. Social Media has forsaken me. Everything I thought I knew turned out to be only half the question with no answer. If only we had all listened in our middle school safety assembly when they told us to never post anything on the internet… we could just start fresh. Although, then we wouldn’t have all these years of practice on social media that make us the savvy communication generation we pride ourselves on being… bit of a catch 22. To help wrap my mind around how we got to this point, I tried to make a timeline of my social media history.

1998- All I want to do is go over my friends house so that I can watch the new Disney movie.

2000- I’m a kid, begging for a computer so that I can get AIM and instant message my BFF’s. My away message is the most critical part of my identity. It has to be clever, cute, and pretty, of course. I spend the majority of the time I’m “Away” brainstorming new away messages. The internet is scary though and my parents need to protect me from it at all costs!

2002- Myspace. I have to come up with perfect picture to represent who I am. I will choose my top 8 friends in order to make a statement about who I’m the closest to (and who I am fighting with that day).

2004- My older brother is all about Facebook and I need it in my life. I’m too young, my parents are still focused on the old mantra “stranger, danger”

2007- I am introduced to the world of blogging and can’t quite understand why everyone isn’t as obsessed with my life as much as I am.

2009- Facebook is my life.

2011- Twitter.

2013- 10,000 other addictive sites.

We have been bred to look at our lives from the perspective of others to understand what makes a good post. What can I say that will make everyone admire my words for ten seconds, but leave a legacy of admiration in their “like”. It’s been a confusing road. What I was brought up to fear is now what I am being trained on to get a job. When did social media change from a risky pastime to an online job application?

Now we find ourselves in these awkward positions of having ten years of self identifying activity on social media, but having to make sure our online reputation is clean and pristine for our careers. Microblogging has gotten so out of hand we couldn’t even guess as to what topics we may have mentioned a month ago, let alone a year ago. It’s second nature. We have a thought, an idea, a frustration, we post it for the world to know, to laugh at, to share, or to comment on. Even this blog will forever go in my online history, hopefully no future employers take offense to anything I’m talking about.

Essentially, our mind has become public property- so how do we reign that in before our job interview?

Gone catfishing, be back when I’m caught

Privacy and social media are an odd combination. The act of joining a public social media site in order to share information about yourself with others seemingly negates your need for privacy… or so you would assume. Yet people jump through hoops in order to change their standards of privacy and speak out (via social media statuses and posts, ironically enough) when they feel their privacy is being invaded.

The hot topics within social media privacy are: tagged photos, companies asking for social media passwords, and most recently, Facebook’s graph search. We’ve almost been brainwashed to believe that companies having personal information about us is scarier than other users- but how true is this?

We’ve surely all heard the old saying “stranger, danger”… but now we have social media sites telling us that once we confirm an add request, no matter the requester, they’re now our friends. I propose that in today’s world, it’s these “friends” we should be most worried about. A company wants to look at our profile for one of two reasons: to evaluate your character for a position within that company, or for marketing purposes. Meanwhile, “friends” can pose as whomever they like and get all the information they want. A new trend of what’s come to be known as catfishing. Catfish are people who create fake profiles and mislead others to believe they’re someone they’re not. The scariest part is that you never know who may be using your face as a catfish.

Privacy is often seen as a battle to control what others know about you. Maybe we should be more worried about what others use about you… your name? Your face? Your life.