Social media changes so much in a week that it can be hard to keep up. Check back every Friday for our roundup of stories we think you should know about in our Social Media Snap.
With the beginning of fall comes the changing of the leaves, pumpkin flavored everything, and BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING! (What? Adults don’t get to do that? Oh.) Instead of using a traditional print catalog mailed to subscribers, J. Crew made an unprecedented move this week by debuting its fall catalog on Pinterest instead. This news, while not necessarily groundbreaking, indicates a growing trend of clothing brands choosing to use social media instead of traditional channels to communicate with consumers.
Similarly, Diesel chose to forgo famous models and actresses for its latest ad campaign and instead featured artistic, everyday people on Tumblr. According to Nicola Formichetti, Diesel’s artistic director, “I wanted to find people who reflected the diversity of the creative community today and not just the typical model. I wanted the campaign to showcase a variety of characters, people who are beautiful in their own unique way.”
This week LinkedIn launched a new feature called LinkedIn University Pages. High school students ages 14 and up will now be able to create a LinkedIn profile and connect with universities they may be interested in attending. “The new pages allow students to tap into the network at a school they’re considering, ask current students and alumni questions, and explore the career path of graduates from the University for an idea of what they can expect after receiving their degree.” High school kids these days don’t know how easy they’ve got it.
Oh look, another study about how Facebook is crushing our souls and ruining our lives. Awesome. A “new” study found that Facebook use could undermine a person’s sense of happiness and well being. It can also have a negative impact on how users feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their overall lives. As someone who spends a great deal of time on Facebook each day, I’d say I’m pretty darn happy with my life.
Here’s someone who probably shouldn’t be spending his time on social media: Dr. Phil. This week the good doctor outraged Twitter users when he tweeted, “If a girl is drunk, is it OK to have sex with her? Reply yes or no to @drphil #teensaccused”. The Tweet has since been removed, but not before eliciting some serious backlash. A few days later Jerry Springer, the pinnacle of morality and decency, stood up to defend his fellow talk show host’s Tweet. An endorsement from Jerry Springer is exactly what Dr. Phil needs right now.
This week a Palestinian security researcher discovered a glitch in Facebook’s security that allows anyone to post on your Timeline. After being ignored by Facebook reps, he decided to demonstrate this glitch by hacking into Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Timeline to let him know that he should probably get that fixed. For his valiant and noble efforts, the hacker was awarded $11,000 from an online crowdsourced campaign. I’d say this guy had a pretty good week.
When it wasn’t busy dealing with well-meaning hackers, Facebook rolled out its newest feature, embedded posts, to all users this week. Now bloggers and web page managers can embed Facebook posts directly into their sites. While this isn’t especially relevant to the average Facebook user, bloggers and social media enthusiasts (like those of us here at TBG) are rejoicing over the news.
With Football season upon us, fans are gearing up for Sundays filled with beers, burgers and giant men in tight pants beating each other up over a tiny ball (Go Broncos!). One of those fans happens to be Google. Rumor has it that Google and YouTube execs met with the NFL to discuss taking over the Sunday Ticket package in 2014 when DirecTV’s contract is up. Reps on both sides have denied the deal, but this meeting certainly got the Internet buzzing.
Happy weekend,
@Richellem09