I got the domain name, I might as well have a website.
I love a good cover, and BBC1’s Live Lounge has some of the best covers around. Here are some of my faves:
Kings of Leon cover Robyn’s Dancing By Myself
Bastille cover Miley Cyrus’s We Can’t Stop
Usher cover’s Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People
Hit me up in the comments with your favourite celeb covers!
It’s Face/Off but this time with Nicolas Cage and Miley Cyrus!
Check out this infographic about Twitter and Netflix’s House of Cards. Very interesting to see the apparent impact of timeshifting/binge watching on the conversation.
Compiled by Ani O’Brien
August was a busy month on the Social Media front. We certainly weren’t short of topics to discuss, nor things to whinge and joke about. This was a month of botulism scares and creepy government spying agencies. There was ‘BatFleck’, Shearer got the flick, earthquakes and marriage equality, just to name a few. We also managed to dedicate some tweets to observing and pondering the intricacies of our own existence. We affectionately laughed at family members and were (sometimes quite alarmingly) honest about our day to day lives. Here are a few of my favourite tweets from the month of August;
We’re nothing if not honest…
@SWTGallagher I think the closest to joining the mile high club I’ll ever get is having sex in the airplane at Taupo’s McDonalds…
@alexkc Going to walk into this party like I am walking onto a yacht (will wear my stepdad’s lifejacket and scream until somebody holds my hand)
@AceMcWicked That fart was so nasty that on a slower news day it would have made the front page.
@EstherMacIntyre Tried the intermittent fasting diet. At 3.30pm, ate flatmate’s toast out of the bin.
@mcquillanatorz I don’t date anyone who has less than 100% positive feedback on TradeMe #noscrubs
Nothing stranger than family…
@CyrisXD My nephew is scared of thunder. I told him that was silly considering the sun could explode any day, killing us all. I think that helped
@AceMcWicked I incorrectly claimed my cat as a human dependent in my tax return #incorrectly
@CaitlinSomers “If I could be an animal I’d be a duck – ducks can bite fingers off” sooo my brother is a sadist
Sweet and Sour Milk…
@RFStew New Zealand. The land of (tainted) milk and (fake) honey.
@ColeyTangerina my bf just came home to drink a milkshake I made which means Kelis is science.
Honourable employment…
@toryhipster Just read a Danish sonnet from 1690 about a dude jacking off. Seriously. Counting this as work. #bestjob
@NateNauer Sometimes people mistaking you for the bouncer is a good thing. “$20 cover charge please”
@BetterWorkStory An unemployed (and previously convicted) sex offender smoking a joint just told me to “get a real job.” #nzpolice
@Atomic_Moog This breach of the office chocolate biscuit policy is threatening to boil over.
@rents1 Been a lot of talk about ninjas at wk this week. If I hadn’t picked my current career that was my 2nd choice.
Critical appointments…
@edmuzik will throw my weight behind David Cunliffe if only so we can use “Son of A Preacher Man” as the 2014 campaign jingle
@RockYourBoyce Wait…Bruce Wayne was Batman?!
@AliIkram Politics is such a tough profession. One day you’re waving around dead fish in the house of representatives. The next u r gone.
The government made it legal for Uncle Sam to become Big Brother…
@AntDCat Nixon bugged a hotel and subsequently resigned from office. Obama bugged the entire world and shrugs it off.
@TaikaWaititi Oh Mr Prime Minister, Al Qaeda is living in NZ now is it? Well in that case, yes, I permit you to spy on me while I surf the titty sites.
Marriage became a right for all! And God responded in fury with earthquakes and shit…
@ColeyTangerina Apparently a plane was struck by lightning landing in Auckland? God is really enjoying punking all the fundies on #MarriageEquality day.
@jtclassic Good luck to the same sex couples getting married in NZ today! May yours last FAR longer than my shitty straight marriage did #loveislove
@ferrouswheel What’s the most earthquake strengthened pub in Wellington? #eqnz
The Runners Up…
@joesomething_ I’m having trouble distinguishing between someone who does crossfit, and a crazy Christian preacher standing on Queen St.
@MsBeeton I don’t call it lying down, I call it landscape mode.
And the winner is…
@gtiso Billions of years from now the universe will reach heat death, and all that will be left will be a couple of grudges I’ve been holding.
@gtiso please follow our friends at @OldMoutCider to collect your delicious prize! And thanks to Ani for compiling the tweets this month! – Cate
Here it is – the X Factor NZ infographic full of interesting social media facts about the show.
Today Facebook announced changes to their news feed, in the name of transparency and ease. Arguably the most important part of Facebook, the news feed as it appears on your homepage is determined by a number of key indicators including popularity of the update, the amount you’ve interacted with that person or page historically, how many people have created a negative action against the update, and the spend attached to promoting the update.
Facebook say that on average there are 1500 potential stories that can be displayed to you every time you visit your news feed, and that means you’re going to miss a large number of them. You’ll miss more because of those filtered results, you’ll only scroll through 57% of them. The update to the algorithm means you’ll see more of those missed updates.
The early data indicates a 5% increases in engagement to posts from friends and family, and an 8% increase to engagement on organic posts from pages. The changes do not impact reach of paid spend.
As always, content is king. Creating great, timely Facebook status updates that users want to share with each other will have more impact than trying to game a feed.
“For page owners, this means their most popular organic Page posts have a higher chance of being shown to more people, even if they’re more than a few hours old,” Facebook’s Lars Backstrom said in a blog post today.
So, good news for page mangers who rely on organic reach, and hopefully a better UX for Facebook users.
Compiled by Chris Hooper
Spies
@AnnaGConnell I might kill our neighbours. Turn the farking bass down. NB #GCSB I don’t mean that, it’s a faux threat commonly used to express anger.
@mcquillanatorz Defence Force to scrap journo spying rule after discovering most communications are just hilarious cat gifs
Royal Baby Fever
@CMRanapia Everytime HMQ sees the hashtags #RoyalBaby & #FunUncle together, a footman gets beaten to death with a corgi. True.
@Rose_Matafeo uh guys what if this royal baby grows up to be an asshole?
@BoganetteNZ Kate should release a statement that just says “fuck off it’ll come out when it’s good and ready”. That’s what I’d do. #royaladvice
Stay Classy, NZ
@Robbo_Junior Today’s ingenuity badge goes to the person I just ran across who named their children Sean and Shaun #winning
@THE_VONK Very difficult to take photos of topless girls on the beach. Couldn’t do it without making it obvious.
@pinkdeedle Is a nose orgasm a thing? Cos I think I just had one.
@kittengloves Guess that smell. And other fun bus games. FML.
@vegrandis If you’re going to try serve cheese at fridge temperature without any quince paste or a charcuterie, u can go ahead & throw it in the bin.
Life
@chizchizchiz i was having an okay day and then i remembered something dumb i did 3 years ago and now i hate myself forever
@Kiwi_Chatter I had to explain to a tourist that Palmerston North wasn’t destroyed in an earthquake. It just looks a bit shit.
@CyrisXD You never truly know someone until you see their bag of chips getting caught in a vending machine.
@markleggett Nice try, Henry Cavill, but I’m still straight.
@ggsacks Every time my boyfriend doesn’t tweet for more than 3 hours I assume death. Oh well, we had a good run.
Because, cute.
@lmfbs 17yo boy comes out to a bunch of other boys while they’re all in speedos. Gets hugs and “bro, doesn’t even matter, we love you anyway” <3
This week’s winner is @Kiwi_Chatter for his work keeping New Zealand tourism alive and kicking. Follow Old Mout Cider to get your delicious, delicious goodies.
In our day-to-day lives, we are bombarded with the images of “perfect” people who we will never be. People who look a certain way, act a certain way, have their lives seemingly sorted – all the things you think you’re not. It’s easy for the world to beat you down and tell you you’re shit, so who doesn’t need encouragement every now and again?
Inspired by GoKaleo’s blog, I put a call out for people to contribute to our own version of “I am awesome and so are you!” – thank you to these brave people who sent me their photos and messages. I hope they touch you as much as they did me.
So you have a branded social media account, and you’re following the first rule of social: Don’t be a dick. Good, but now what?
There’s lots of advice floating around about what content works well on which platforms – making sure your Facebook status is “likeable”, joining in on a Twitter conversation, hashtagging your Instagrams up the ying – but for me, it boils down to this wee venn diagram:
The red circle is about finding out what your audience likes – seems straightforward, but are you sure you know what they like, and not what you think they like? What is it about your audience that is unique?
The blue circle is about being on brand. It’s about promotions and marketing. It’s about the look and feel of updates. It’s about getting the core message of your company across.
The yellow circle is about what works best online. What topics are going off at the moment? Where is the conversation – what is it about? What are today’s memes?
A lot of companies stay in one content type. They may even cross over with another circle, but spend a lot of time delivering one sort of update, to the detriment of the community or their brand. Your brand should never just live in one of those circles. If your marketing push doesn’t exist for the community, it’s not right for social. If your viral content is totally off brand, you’re wasting your time.
Doing updates from sections 1, 2, or 3 is a slightly better option.
Living in section 1 means the content they’re using is engaging, and their fans like it, but it doesn’t reflect the brand. Generic status updates like this are fine, but often your brand can get lost, or there may even be a conflict between the values of your brand, and the content you’re posting.
Section 2 is where you’ve found the niche in terms of what works for your brand, and your audience, but the content isn’t necessarily viral. This is a good place to be in terms of brand hygiene, but not so much in terms of outreach, and fan endorsement.
If your updates are in section 3, you’re producing on-brand content that ticks the box in terms of being viral or engaging in nature, but that doesn’t resonate with your fans. It could be that you’re using the meme too late (remember all those brands that put out Harlem Shake videos the week after everyone declared it dead? Yeah, that.)
The golden space is section 4. You’ve found content that fits with your brand, your audience loves it, and it’s positioned well to go off. And it does! Well done, you. Hope your boss recognises how hard it is to find that sweet spot!
So… How did that happen?
Yes, it’s simplistic, but it works.