Social Media and the Job Hunt

As the time has come for me to graduate college in a month, the job hunt has been at the forefront of my mind for quite a while. The economy is not as bad as it was a few years ago, but that does not mean that it is an easy task to get a job right out of college. Social Media has made that task much harder.

With the increased number of qualified candidates, recruiters and companies have had to learn new ways of eliminating candidates. Job seekers are pushed to make their social media profiles and presences better and better, because 55% of recruiters now look at social media when weeding out candidates.

Companies plan to invest 73% more in social recruiting, 63% more in referrals, and 51% more in mobile. There’s more candidate quality, quantity, and those candidates are getting hired faster than ever before. Using social media helps recruiters see applicants outside of their resume, which presents a person in their best light.

Recruiters are employing an omni-channel approach, which means that all of your social profiles will be looked at. Unfortunately, for applicants, this means that recruiters have more visibility for applicants, who have to be constantly on their toes, consistently presenting their best selves. Without a great social presence, candidates will easily get overlooked.

Personally, I think social media is a great way to understand if an applicant will fit into a company’s environment. While it creates more work for millennials, companies all over the world will benefit from social recruiting, thus improving the quality of their company.

Obama and Net Neutrality

Today, President Obama took a stand on net neutrality. He is fervently for the policy and is urging the Federal Communications Commission to “implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.” His proposal opposes fast lanes and any kind of blocking and throttling of Internet connections. His core ideas are below:

No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.

No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.

Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.

No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

The one thing that could be a problem for President Obama and his team is that the Federal Communications Commission is not bound by the government. It is an independent organization. Tom Wheeler, who is the FCC Chairman, responded, simply saying the commission “welcomes” the President’s comment and will take it into consideration.

One thing the President is calling for is called reclassification, which would “reclassify” internet and broadband providers as utilities and thus able to be imposed by the FCC.

Over the years, this concept has affected social media immensely. Social media sites could be charged by the FCC to have faster speed. Facebook and Google would probably pay these rates, but would they still offer free rates to their users? And I can see that big companies would pay these rates, but what about smaller sites, who couldn’t afford the rates? Would they simply just fall behind?

Social Media Disasters

Multiple companies have used social media to avoid disasters for their companies, but some brand haven’t been so lucky. Unfortunately, there have been some companies who royally screwed up. Here are the most memorable disasters:

KitchenAid

 

This is a captured retweet as KitchenAid has deleted the tweet. The tweet read “Obama gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died 3 days b4 he became president. #nbcpolitics”. According to the official KitchenAid Twitter account, the social media manager chose the wrong account in their TweetDeck and meant to post this to their personal account. Democrat or Republican, no one should be making fun of someone’s grief and loss. Also, plz how lern 2 spell.

American Airlines

 

Just say no to automated tweets. It’s artificial customer engagement and it looks worse than no customer engagement at all.

Entenmanns

Just looking at the tweet, you wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with it. Unfortunately, this company didn’t realize that the #notguilty hashtag was trending during the Casey Anthony trial. Hopefully, they’ll look at the hashtag next time.

NRA

 

This was tweeted on the same day as the Aurora, Colorado shooting. Enough said.

Celeb Boutique

 

Also, on the same day as the Aurora shooting. People please check why hashtags are trending.

When companies have these disasters on social media, usually they are what customers remember rather than the good that they do. We hold brands to this perfect standing, and while everyone makes mistakes, most of these social media problems were caused by stupid mistakes that were easily fixable.

 

Spooky Social Media: How Brands are Connecting Through Halloween

Halloween is a little more than two weeks away and brands have started to roll out their spooky social media creatives. As the holidays in the later parts of the year are my favorite (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas), I thought I would devote a blog post to the spookiest holiday of them all.

In this blog post, I will touch on the best Halloween social media campaigns and the best from this year so far.

From last year, the best campaigns/posts come from Oreo (there’s more than one amazing post, no surprise there), Tide, and Gatorade. Honorable mentions go to Audi and Petco. I have only seen one social media campaign related to Halloween from this year and it trumps all the rest. That award goes to Coke.

Oreo

 

Oreo is probably my favorite brand on social media. They seem to really understand each social media platform and they’ve done social media well since before most other brands. They started their “Daily Twist” campaign in 2012 to celebrate their 100th anniversary, which mixed 100 different news stories or celebrations on 100 different days. Some of the most notable were the Gay Pride tweet, Elvis Presley week tweet, and the Mars Rover Lands tweet. Then, at the Superbowl 2013, they came up with the tweet that will go down in Twitter history (“You can still dunk in the dark”, see an earlier blog post). They have continued to excel with their Halloween campaign from 2013. The first is a tweet that shows their fun and and clever tone. The tweet is simple, but effective. Their use of one-liners and puns are legendary in the social media world. The second post I loved from Oreo was the Vine campaign. They posted two Vines taking famous scenes from horror movies and made Oreo the star. The first was a scene from “The Shining” and the second was a scene from “The Exorcist” (above).

Tide

When thinking of creative brands on social media, you wouldn’t think of Tide immediately. After seeing this campaign, I will think more of Tide in the social media arena. They, like Oreo, took scenes from classic horror films and made it all about Tide. Tide posted 6 vines, instead of 2 like Oreo. The films include “Carrie”, “Psycho”, “Poltergeist”, “Paranormal Activity”, “The Ring” and “The Shining”. Besides the videos being extremely creative, the hashtag is what makes the whole campaign. #ScaredStainless.

Gatorade

http://instagram.com/p/gI7Wr-Nf0W/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=video&modal=true

This Instagram video focuses less on scary and more on inspiration. With no music and the dark colors, there are scary elements, but the tagline “Be Their Worst Nightmare” says it all. Gatorade itself does a really great job of focusing on all different types of sports on their social media, which gives them a larger audience. Smart move. I see you, Gatorade.

Audi

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A post shared by Audi USA (@audi)

In my opinion, this is the creepiest post of all. Audi does a great job of highlighting the spookier side of Halloween. They build you up with the carving of the pumpkin, and then they scare you with the unmistakable Audi headlights.

Petco

 

Because who doesn’t want to see pictures of cute animals in Halloween costumes?

Coke

 

In this chapter of the Coke vs. Pepsi Wars, Pepsi dresses up as Coke for Halloween, just as a cutesy post, but Coke doesn’t miss this perfect opportunity to add another social media win to their books. They hit Pepsi back with the exact same picture with the tagline “Everyone wants to be a Hero!” Just like the Taco Bell vs. McDonald’s Wars, everyone consistently watches Coke and Pepsi, hoping to see what each will do next. Hats off to Coke; they’ve kicked off this year’s Halloween social media campaign’s with a bang.

What surprised me was that a lot of these brands used video to illustrate their brands. The use of Instagram video and Vine were both perfect platforms to execute each of their messages. I am interested if these brands will use these platforms again this year or if they will migrate to a different platform.

Snapchat’s “Our Story”

I would say that 95% of millennials are Snapchat users. In August, Snapchat rolled out “Our Story” to the public after testing in June and July. Snapchat saw the growing popularity of “My Story” and created this new feature, catapulting off of its old one. It was originally tested at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, and then it continued its testing at the FIFA World Cup. That’s when everyone started to notice. Only 14,000 people were able to see the Electric Daisy Carnival “Our Story”, hence why no one seemed to notice until the World Cup. That’s when Snapchat decided to sample it to all Snapchat users.

“Our Story” allows a continuous stream of photos and videos and is changing the way that the public experiences events. By allowing people to contribute to these stories, Snapchat is creating a community around an event. People do not have to participate, but they can still see the stories.

“My Story has always represented a singular, personal experience,” Snapchat wrote on its blog. “We wanted to build something that offered a community perspective — lots of different points of view.”

Snapchat has expanded the feature to include different categories, such as College Gameday. College Gameday stories include locker room content and fan content. Users are receiving content that is obvious that this is all about them.

There are potential issues with this new feature, though. Snapchat has to monitor the content to make sure everything stays above ground and safe. Also, the teams and other “Our Story” participants have to make sure that they do not cross the line with over-advertising about themselves and keeping the stories all about the users. Otherwise, Snapchat has a potential gold mine in their hands.

iPhone 6 and #Bendgate

Let’s face it. Every time Apple releases a new iPhone it’s all anyone can talk about. And the release of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is no different. Everyone wants to know when their phone contracts are available for an update and how soon can they get this new iPhone. And the phenomenon only became more popular when the public found out that the iPhone 6 could possibly bend in your back pocket. People went nuts.

#Bendgate trended on twitter. YouTube videos devoted to the subject received millions and millions of views. Every newsource in the world was reporting on it. Social media was no different.

Apple’s competitors started the jokes. Pretty soon, brands that had nothing to do with the iPhone were posting. Companies, such as Samsung and LG, obviously couldn’t not comment on Apple’s PR nightmare. But you knew it was bad when Kit Kat, Ford, and Dockers couldn’t help themselves.

Samsung definitely beat out LG in the technology department. In my eyes, Samsung has always been the Apple’s closest competitor since they started releasing smart phones, and they had the most to gain from this scandal. And they did very well, too. “Bend to those who are worthy”; it makes them seem superior to Apple in a clever and witty way.

Kit Kat had my favorite reaction, though. The fact that they had nothing to do with the new iPhone and still came up with a way to include themselves is genius. That’s what social media is all about. Companies have to find ways to include themselves in conversations that their consumers are participating in.

Talk of the iPhone is slowing down now that people have realized that bending rarely happens. Only nine people have come forward about bending since the release of the new phone. But companies still need to continue to find new ways to incorporate themselves into the public’s conversations to continue to make themselves relevant. After all, no one likes a show off. I’m looking at you, Apple.

CIA Reaching Us Through Twitter

On June 6. 2014, one of the United States’ high profile government organizations connected with the social media world. The CIA joined Twitter.

Since the beginning of June, they have reached 742,000 followers with only 165 tweets. Their reach (the measure of the range of influence) on the internet was already high, but, with the advent of their Twitter account, they reached 51%. To put that in perspective, President Obama has a 56% reach.

I honestly never expected the CIA to become a Twitter user. And when they did, I think everyone wasn’t sure as to how they would use it. It turns out that the CIA doesn’t take social media very seriously. For their one month twitter-versary, they asked their followers to send in questions and they selected five to answer.

I know I was surprised by their wittiness. The organization has been criticized by many after this campaign, saying that the CIA should think more about their social media presence. The tweet that got most people in a tizzy was the one about Tupac. Critics said that someone didn’t understand that Tupac is dead or that they didn’t understand one-liner jokes. Either way, it wasn’t good for an intelligence agency. Personally, I thought it was funny and wasn’t bothered by it.

Not to say that their presence is perfect though. They do have to work on their tone of voice on social media. I think that the CIA does go back and forth between serious and witty, which can be a little confusing.

The CIA having a twitter is a great move, because there are so much public interest surrounding the agency and this is a way for them to engage with the public. They definitely should not delete their account. I think with some refinement on their social media tone and more consistent posting, the CIA could usher in a new governmental social media era.

Gatorade pokes fun at LeBron James during the NBA Finals

In June of this year, two NBA teams, the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat, battled for the ultimate title in the sport of basketball. The Spurs ended up taking home the trophy, but the real star of this battle was LeBron James and Gatorade.

I’m not a fan of basketball by an means – in fact, it’s my least favorite sport – and I usually don’t follow it, but, when a notable player like LeBron James leaves the first game of the finals for severe leg cramps, everyone, including me, is going to hear about it. Especially when Gatorade makes fun of said notable player.

 

LeBron James actually sponsors Gatorade’s rival, Powerade, and a good number of people believed that James was a Gatorade sponsor, hence the above snark.

The public seemed to be in disagreement about Gatorade’s comments. Some thought it was funny, while others thought that it was wrong to poke fun at someone while in poor health.

Whatever your take is on the subject, Gatorade taking the opportunity to create buzz was a smart move. When people started tweeting at Gatorade and putting down their drink, they had to make a stand. Powerade and Gatorade are rival brands and Gatorade was defending their brand. Albeit, by taking a stab at LeBron, which maybe wasn’t the nicest thing to do.

In the end, Gatorade apologized for the tweets, saying “We got caught up in the heat of the battle.” “The Heat” Get it? Creating a pun in their apology was genius and made everyone think less of the incident, while still admitting their wrongdoings. This shows the strength of Gatorade’s brand and also shows that not even a little Heat can bring them down.

Oreo Cookie Superbowl Blackout

Superbowl XLVII boasted an exciting game of football between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers on February 2, 2013. The 49ers struggled the first half and made a comeback in the second half, but the Ravens emerged victorious with a score of 34-31. Their reward is the Lombardi Trophy.

But no one remembers any of that. All anyone can recall is the power outage that put the game into a thirty minute delay during the third quarter. Cheerleaders cheered in the dark, everyone lost internet and power, and then brands took to social media.

Volkswagen told us don’t worry, get happy, Audi took a jab at Mercedes-Benz (who was the sponsor of this superbowl), and Tide said “We can’t get your blackout, but we can get your stains out”. Raising far above the rest was milk’s favorite cookie (and mine too), Oreo.

“Power Out? No problem.” This tweet received over 15,000 retweets, over 6,000 favorites, and over 20,000 likes on Facebook. I remember seeing this tweet and wondering how did they come up with that so quickly? Turns out they had their social media team at the ready just in case. The tweet was conceptualized in minutes. In a genius move, Oreo Cookie captured the moment for themselves and took advantage of the phenomenon, without spending millions of dollars on TV ads.

This message continues to stun the world and has won 14 media awards. Magazines and blogs declared that Oreo had won the Superbowl and I think that, based upon the public response, everyone agrees.

Delta and the Royal Baby

On July 22, 2013, The Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to the private Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington at 5:30 A.M in the early stages of labor. As the news broke that the Duchess was in labor, thousands crowded around the hospital and Buckingham Palace, hoping to get a glance of the action. The whole world was abuzz with news of the arrival of the royal baby, guesses of whether it would be a boy or a girl and what he or she’s name would be. At 4:24 P.M. that day, a baby boy was born and the country celebrated and wished the new parents well.

The digital world, however, continued to be atwitter with the news of the new Prince of Cambridge. The hashtag #royalbaby received 2,189,451 mentions and the British Monarchy’s official twitter handle (@BritishMonarchy) gained over 40,000 new followers on the day the baby was born.

Soon, multiple companies and brands were realizing the marketing potential and jumping on the royal baby bandwagon. Companies, such as Oreo, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Pampers, joined the craze and congratulated the couple via social media. But one company reached the public and managed to tug at their heartstrings at the same time.

 

“We can’t wait to show you the world.” This tweet by Delta perfectly combines the world’s interest in the royal baby with their own without shamelessly advertising their products, which is what every company’s social media team aims to do. Gone are the days of disruptive marketing. Customers want to be woo’ed and Delta has done just that. The tweet received 115 retweets and 64 favorites. By being one of the most notable Royal Baby tweets, Delta ensured that their name would continue to be mentioned throughout the rest of the royal baby talk, even in this blog post over a year later.