Social Media Apps

With the introduction of application on our cellular devices, it seems that cell phones rarely even leave the hands of today’s society, especially the younger generation.  True, some of these apps can be beneficial.  They can be used for research, communication, email, organization and other aspects that make the daily life easier. 

But, more often than not, these apps are used solely for entertainment purposes.  There are games, that can consume hours and hours of unproductive time.  And even worse than useless games, are social media apps.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this website showing the most popular applications right now:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/category/SOCIAL/collection/topselling_free?hl=en

You’ll notice that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Linked-In all grace the top ten apps.  With the other three also relating to communication.  True, social media is useful when trying to connect with people.  You can talk to anyone at anyplace in the world and receive a response within seconds.  It’s instant and convenient.  But it begs the question, is all of this communication really necessary?  I mean, let’s be honest here, not every status update is a gem of intellectual genius.  In fact, very few are.  Most of the time we find memes and song lyrics.  I feel that the current use of social media apps is a waste of the potential they have to make a difference worldwide.

In addition to being time wasters, social media apps have started to violate privacy.  Like this article shows:  https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/socialbusiness/entry/5_new_social_networking_apps_cool_or_creepy16?lang=en_us.  I mean really? Choosing not only WHERE you sit on a plane, but WHO sits by you seems a little bit excessive.  We are also seeing apps to “rate” your Facebook friends and even meet strangers with a 100 mile radius of you.  You can link into where people are at any given time.  The idea scares me a little bit. 

Free flow of information is wonderful and helpful to society.  But when is information, too much information.  It’s something we need to be careful of when we hid download on our next phone app.

Viral Videos

Watch this!!  http://youtu.be/80entLldZOg  It is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite videos on YouTube.  Admit it.  You all have your favorite YouTube videos, and you have all have spent hours watching video after video digging through the kittens and babies to find the video gold.  And everyone has the dream of having one of their videos go viral.

Viral videos are the king of the pack.  They are the most viewed and most popular of all time.  According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_video Kony 2012 became the most viral video of all time with 90,000,000 views in 2012.  To reach an audience of that size is an amazing feat!  YouTube even pays those who upload the most popular videos, because they attract attention to their ads.  If you are able to make a video, and make it go viral, you can promote any cause you want!  It is definitely a coveted title.

So how do you make a video go viral?  It means views on the website.  Sharing it through social media.  It means commenting, liking and re-posting as many times as possible.  Essentially, the more people you can get to watch the video, they closer to fame you become.

Viral videos is not a 2013 or even 2012 sensation.  http://classicviralvideos.com/ shows viral and popular videos reaching back to 2006.  Viral videos are generally funny and provide entertainment for those who watch them.  But they can be so much more than that.  They can promote ideas, causes and organizations.  Viral videos can even serve as a commercials for businesses and organizations.  So the next time you watch that Harlem shake video, think of what else could be accomplished through viral videos. 

Search Engine Optimization

Whenever I think about life before Google, I pity those poor college students.  Can you even imagine having a question and not being able to find the answer with the push of a button?  I mean, how would you ever know how to make muddy buddies, or what year the Lion King was released?  And homework assignments, don’t even get me started.  But not everything that comes up in search engines is exactly what you were looking for.  Shocker, right?  It’s up to us to the user to sift through the information and find what they really need.

From a business standpoint, you want your website to be exactly what the user is looking for.  And the goal is to be at the top of every search result.  Bumping your website up the search scale is called “search engine optimization.”  Or in other words, become the number one result on Google.  This article gives some more tips on SEO’s and how to utilize the engines:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

One thing that internet surfers will be looking for is whether or not your website looks credible.  This article (conveniently found on the web) gives some tips on how to determine if a website is credible or not:  http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm  Look for credible names or organizations backing the website.  Looking for spelling and grammar mistakes is also helpful.  Check for bias that is swaying to one end of the spectrum.  The more reliable you make yourself, the more hits you will get on your page.

Keep in mind that there are different kinds of searches.  There are local searches, image searches , scholarly searches, and each have their own unique set of results.  Determine who your target audience is and tailor your searches to meet their needs.  If you show up in Google, they might just click your site.  And if they click your site, they might just buy your product.