Occasionally someone will slam a particular social media platform by saying it is not cool anymore. This is kind of like saying that you won't travel on airplanes anymore because none of them have a good color scheme. “Major aircraft just don't fit my style needs. I am going to walk to Colorado.”
Social media platforms are tools. Some like to position themselves as trendy and hip. Of course, so do children of celebrities ... many of whom end up in some sort of drug treatment program. But what matters with a social media site is whether it functions well and enables you to connect to others. Email is no longer trendy and hip. It is still a vital means of communication in today's world. Those misnamed hoverboards ARE trendy and hip … and have created a spike in emergency room visits. So you can be uncool and email friends, family, business contacts, etc. Or you can be cool, hop on a hoverboard, and visit a burn unit. When it comes to social media, never mind trendy. Choose platforms based on whether they actually work and if they are good places for you to communicate with fans, customers, etc. It is not uncommon to see posts that have been pushed from Instagram over to other social networks. This shows the same kind of caring, personal touch as calling a friend and then just playing him your outgoing voicemail message. “Hello?” “Hi. This is Dave. I'm sorry I missed your call ...” “But you called me.” “... but if you leave your name and number ...” “What are you talking about?!” “... I'll get back to you as soon as ...” “This makes no sense!” It is easy to tell when a post has been pushed over from Instagram. Sometimes next to the person's name it will say “Instagram”, mainly because there is not enough room to print “I'm lazy and think your are beneath me.” Another sign is that the posts will have several links to other people that do not work. Thus you get a picture of some flowers and the text “Praying for peace on his sacred holiday @rumproast @moron5 @rectal-itch.” It will also have 700 hashtags. Because while hashtags are used less and less on other social networks, on Instagram people spit them out more often than they exhale. It is not so much a communication tool, but a contagious speech impediment. Some day there will be a charity that seeks to help people with hashtag disorders. All in all, just pushing your Instagram posts over to all of the other social networks is an excellent way to show people that you really don't care. Some people frantically post to every social network they can find. This is an excellent strategy if your primary goals are high blood pressure, occasional dizzy spells, and the need for prescription medication. “Ask your doctor if spastic posting is right for you.” It has the added benefit of ensuring that you won't do anything well. - Cris Pandora is the music streaming service that proved that a complex algorithm can be way worse than just putting your iPod on shuffle play. Apparently their business model does not work. They make money through advertisements that people ignore. Also, in theory, some people pay for a subscription to Pandora. Although, these are kind of like Elvis sightings. You hear about this happening, but you never meet anyone who actually had the experience.
The company is complaining that the money they pay out to the makers of the music – 14 cents for every 100 songs – is too much. They claim that if they are going to reach their goal of making a lot of money off of the work of other people, then those other people will have to be paid less. However, for some reason the other people don't like this idea too much. Which is shocking. After all, let's say you were in the gasoline business and you were paying the oil companies the hefty fee of 14 cents per 100 barrels of oil. If you went to them and said it was too much, I'm sure they would understand and immediately cut their price in half. It seems to me that there is a simple solution to this problem though: The employees of Pandora just need to write and record a few million hit songs. Then they can play their own material and that painful 14 cent charge will go away. (Read the New York Times article "For Pandora, Ruling on Streaming Royalty Rates Is Crucial") Yet another reason not to worry to much about the other guy's numbers. People sometimes pay through services like Fiverr for fake ratings, fake followers, etc.
Check out this column by the New York Times titled "All the Product Reviews Money Can Buy". Show that you read your followers' comments and you will stand out from a lot of people on social media. - Cris
Some people forget the human element of social media. Thus they create posts with all of the warmth and personality of a camera's warranty information (shown here; possibly created by a program that just puts random words together). Don't think of social media as issuing a statement. Think of it as talking to someone. - Cris
I am seeing more and more pushes to advertise on Instagram. These ads to advertise are running not just on that platform, but also on Facebook as well (which owns Instagram). And I am seeing general ads pretty regularly in my Instagram feed. The question is: Will this cause people to leave Instagram? If you believe what you read, this should lead to complete abandonment of Instagram by Millennials. The stereotype pushed by the media is that Millennials don't think they should ever have to pay for anything and do not want to be on any social media platform that is also being used by us uncool older people. Supposedly that is part of why they left Facebook. Of course, anytime I talk to someone of that generation and I ask if they are still on Facebook, they always say yes. So what is the real story and will the increased advertising on Instagram have any affect on its usage numbers and demographics? |
AuthorCris Cohen Archives
March 2021
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