NFL's Use of Social Media

As everyone probably knows, the NFL Draft was this last Thursday going into the weekend. Not only did they do a great job at keeping their viewers updated but they did a good job at incorporating new social media into the draft. One of the things I thought was really neat was using a photo booth that took pictures of the players and automatically updated it's Twitter followers. There was also a live Twitter chat all about what the hopeful athletes were wearing. I'm thinking this is a way to engage the female audience. This made viewers at home fell like they were there living the experience with the athletes. Almost like a backstage pass socially. They also created an app for the mobile world, Draft Xtra, which kept viewers at home updated about the teams they followed and what was happening live during the draft. Their constant updates on Twitter engaged followers were shown during the draft and here are just some examples that they used.

One of my favorite things about the draft was the constant Twitter live feed that they showed. Followers were able to tweet specific players during the draft and they showed them on television. This was a great way to engage followers and also players during the game.

Congrats to Jarvis Jones, Alec Ogletree, John Jenkins, Shawn Williams, Sanders Commings, Tavarres King, Cornelius Washington and Bacarri Rambo! Way to make UGA proud!

ACM's use of Social Media

I think the ACM's went above and beyond on the social media side during the awards ceremony. Not only did they use Twitter, but they used an app during one of Brad Paisley's songs that I haven't seen done before. Every time an award was given out, the Twitter handle #ACMs would pop up with several tweets from people all over. Twitter is definitely the way to go to get the younger audience and the tech savy generation. This was typical and expected to engage viewers. What I didn't expect was the Brad Paisley Light Show App that was used during his performance with John Mayer. All who downloaded the free app on their phones were synchronized together to form a light show during Paisley's song. This was an awesome way to engage live attendees. During the song, it was fun to see everyone's phone glowing in unison in the stands. Not only will this app be available during the ACM's but during Paisley's tour this summer. Glad Paisley is catching on with the social media scene!

Pinning Contest from Buick

It's funny how you notice specific things more after you have learned about them. Take for instance, I was scanning through Mashable and this article immediately jumped out at me, "Buick Turns Pinterest Board into Car Concept". Only two weeks ago, we were discussing Pinterest and how using contests is a great way to engage customers. Buick has now taken that into consideration and ran with the idea of creating a new car from a contest between 10 of the top design, fashion, food, and lifestyle bloggers.  They created boards with ideas of what they thought were good color schemes for the Buick Encore. Michael Wurm Jr won and Buick was inspired by his light blue and honey tones. Although the car won't be available to purchase, they are to opening up new ideas from customers. This was a great way to engage their followers and allow them to feel like they are contributing to the brand. This is also a great way to engage the younger generation that uses Pinterest. I do think that opening the contest up to the public would be a better way to attract a lot more followers and potential customers!

#KCA

So of course, its a Saturday night and I have nothing better to do than watch the Kids Choice Awards. haha Just kidding, I recorded it...but anyways. It occurred to me as I was watching it today that social networking has become a huge and indefinite part of our lives especially now with the younger generation. I was watching the award show and kept seeing these random people's pictures pop up on the main screen on stage. I didn't realize what they were until I saw the Twitter Feed throughout the bottom of the screen. This was a continuing thing throughout the night where kids could use the hashtag #KCA or #KidsChoiceAwards. It never said where the pictures were from on the screen but I assumed they were from Twitter. It literally amazed me that so many kids are using social media now a days. Kids were voting all throughout the week and tweeting pictures and its just crazy to think that seven year olds tweet. haha I mean what do they even tweet about.. "Mom made me a PB&J. #yes #loveher " They even created an app called Friendstofriends for voting that worked with and through Facebook. Entertainment Weekly tweeted a bunch of videos using Vine where they captured people getting slimed. I thought this was a great idea and very clever way for them to get a younger audience and new followers. I looked on social mention to see how much it was being talked about and to my surprise it was huge. They had 56% strength that it was being talked about on social networking sites, 53% reach, 131:0 sentiment, and 19% passion. These numbers were huge but I do think that the KCA's could have done a better job of promoting and getting the word out about their hashtag and tweeting though. Never once did Josh Duhamel say anything about hey kids go and tweet using #KCA's and it will pop up on the big screen. I think it could have been a lot more active and a lot bigger if they would have just kept mentioning it throughout the show. But overall great show!!!

@BurgerKing fiasco!

Not sure if you've heard but Burger King's Twitter account was hacked today. The funny thing is that they changed everything on their site to McDonalds advertising. The hacker sent out rude tweets and pictures degrading Burger King. According to many sources, the password was whopper123 which has had many tweets about maybe developing a harder password. But my view on this is, is it really a bad thing? Not only did their followers increase to 111K today, but the buzz about Burger King was enormous on twitter. After a few hours, @BurgerKing was trending! When was the last time you tweeted about Burger King? My point exactly...Because of this one incident, Burger King has become national news. A website has now developed playing off of this situation called "Pretend You're Burger King". This is designed for anyone to come and tweet anything they want. Eventually, Burger King's Twitter site was taken down and will be issuing a apology sometime in the near future. Regardless of this being good or bad, Burger King has become popular today and will hopefully benefit from this fiasco!

Harlem Shake Anyone?

So I'm sure everyone has heard about the Harlem Shake videos that have become viral this week?! Where did these things even come from? Why did they start this week? Twitter and Facebook have been blowing up with these things. Everyone from the army to colleges around the world have participated in this viral outrage. The harlem shake dance actually originated in 1981 in Harlem by a man named Al B. It got picked up by G.Dep in 2001 when the harlem shake was put into his music video Lets Get It. The dance is quoted as being "a drunken, alcoholic shake but very enjoyable". Which is exactly what it is! But why is this dance so important? Who really knows. It's a fun dance that can be done with your friends and now everyone wants to do. Most of the dances go like this: You start with one person dancing and then suddenly switches to a lot of people dancing crazily everywhere! So I'm thinking this is going to be a similar fad similar to the Gangum Style video that went viral last year. This video was killing social media for a few months and then suddenly disappeared. Will this video be similar to that one where it is here for a few months and then gone again? I guess we'll have to see what happens with this video. In the mean time, lets get to shaken.

Here is the UGA Men's Team that has gotten over 12 million views!

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Go Be Social!!!!

Last nights Grammys had an array of great performances throughout the three hour show! What caught my eye was the tag they were making to social media..."Go be social!" We heard this specific phrase many times throughout the night from LL Cool J, the host, and also Giuliana Rancic, E!'s correspondent. In the corner of the screen many times throughout the night, #Grammys was shown. After the Grammys, I went to look on social mention to see if buzz was going on . To my surprise, the numbers were really low. The average post was 7 minutes per mention. There was only a 28% strength on social media sites and mostly neutral to positive comments. They're weren't really bad comments used. They did have a 40% reach which I thought was pretty decent but could have been a lot better! E also had a Heat Guage where it shows who has red carpet buzz throughout the show. Also, they had a spot on the banner where anyone could tweet about the Grammys.

Do I think they were trying to push social media, definitely! Do I think they did a good job of it..thats debatable! They did a good job of promoting and getting the word out there about social but I don't feel like many people responded to it. Maybe next year they will figure out a better way to engage the audience better but until then...Go be social!