He hoped it would get to her... and it did!

"I Hope This Gets To You" by The Daylights

Late November of 2010, Walter May - an editor/director based in Los Angeles - decided to send a digital love letter to his girlfriend, Alexis. She had recently moved across the country from him to attend graduate school, and May wanted to let her know just how much he missed her. 


But a simple love letter just would not do! Oh no, he needed something more grandeur. So, with the help of his friends and fellow bandmates of The Daylights, he wrote a song and produced a music video to send to her. The catch: neither he nor any of their friends were allowed to tell Alexis about the video. Instead, he hoped it would reach her virally, through email forwards, Twitter retweets, and Facebook posts.  He blocked Alexis from being able to see his Twitter page and forbade any of their friends from telling her about the video.


On the day he uploaded the video to YouTube, it got an impressive 45,000 views. However, it was reportedly because of retweet by Katy Perry on Twitter that the message finally found it's recipient. After receiving several messages from random people on Facebook urging her to look at the video, Alexis finally clicked on the link and saw her digital love letter.

May's tweet about the "letter" finally reaching his girlfriend

Later that night, May tweeted his success to the many people following the story. For anyone claiming social media is a waste of time, I give you this example as a way in which it can bring people together, and make the world seem a little smaller. In my opinion, this is a great representation of Marshall McLuhan's idea of the Global Village. That idea was introduced nearly 50 years ago, and at the time, many scoffed at the absurdity of it all. 

"On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people, and therefore social spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can interact with others that share the same interests and concerns." - The Global Village, 1962 

With the rise of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, McLuhan couldn't have been any more dead on with his predictions. If you would like to read more about the love letter, check out this article. I hope this brightened your day as much as it did mine!

Twitter: the one-night stand of social media

If you're anything like me, you may have experienced that rush of adrenaline after receiving your first DM or tweet from a pseudo-celebrity. As the story went, I sent a tweet about this individual and included their Twitter handle in those 140 characters. Soon after, they DM-ed me with a quippy response. I retorted with an arguably clever tweet. Then they...nothing. Alas, our Twitter relationship was over.


As a result, I have followed and subsequently unfollowed this person. I'll admit, I felt a little rejected after our Twitversation ended so abruptly. I really thought we had a good thing going! So after reading this article on Social Media Today, I got to thinking about how Twitter really is the one-night stand of the social media universe. 


For one, where Facebook is more "like going to the local coffee shop with a bunch of friends," Twitter is "like the local nightclub where you use your best lines to attract a following." Personal Facebook status updates shared among friends are traded for snarky 140-character quips designed to attract as many followers as possible. It's the bait-and-reel of the social media world. Where quantity trumps quality in terms of followers. People are willing to pull every sly maneuver in the book in order to gain followers. 


According to author Andrew Hunt, there are 3 steps suggested to turn a Twitter one-night stand from "awkward" to "awesome:"

1)  Avoid the Awkward Silence

Failure to engage with your followers will lead to follower regret.  If you don’t offer any ‘after care’ service, they will feel that they have to do ‘the walk of shame’ and un-follow you.  There is nothing fun about quietly letting yourself out of some strange place and having to creep home wearing the exact same clothes from the night before.  So save yourself and your followers the “morning after regret” and engage your followers more often than once in a blue moon.

2)  Show Some Level of Intelligence

In all seriousness, not being able to string a sentence together, and a least some normal friendly conversation, is instant cause for regret.  Whether it’s in the bedroom or on Twitter, if you are awkward then they will be too. 

3)  Follow Up

There is nothing more frustrating than following someone new, and you tweet them a few times and they do not respond.  You feel used and abused.  Twitter is not about notches on your headboard; when your Twitter followers engage you, RESPOND!

Bottom line: getting loads of followers on Twitter is great and all, but if you do not engage them, you will be labeled a "Twitter ho" and lose followers (and respect). In the night club of the Social Meida world (Twitter), leave the cheesy one-liners at home and try to have meaningful conversations with people. You'll be less likely to have a drink thrown in your face, or worse...be unfollowed.

Qriously: The Marriage of GPS Technology and Advertising

You know when you’re playing a free version of a game on your Smartphone, and you get those annoying static advertisements on the top or bottom bar of your screen? What if instead of those random ads, you were prompted to answer real-time questions about your surroundings?

As you're driving to school, you look at your iPhone and see, “What do you think of that new billboard on University?” You have lunch at Jimmy Johns, and as you’re walking out your phone asks, “Which do you prefer: the ‘Pepe’ or ‘Totally Tuna’ Sandwich?” It may sound a bit creepy, but that idea is along the lines of what new sentiment analysis mobile application, Qriously, is trying to accomplish.

While similar to the question-asking model of Quora, Qriously is a service for measuring location-based public sentiment in real time. This mobile application would use GPS technology to pose these types of questions on Smartphones where static ads might normally appear. This would allow marketers, advertising/PR agencies and researchers to ask questions to users in a real-time setting based on where they are located.

In this article from Social Media Today, the author notes that 2011 has been coined “the year of the mobile”, and discusses how automated sentiment analysis software is the future where advertising and mobile technology may merge successfully.

In the age of Twitter, where customers can Tweet positive or negative feedback the moment a transaction occurs, Qriously might be a step toward putting some control back in to the hands of the businesses. Rather than waiting for focus group feedback or public reactions, businesses can hit the ground running the moment they release an advertisement and ask “what did you think of that ad?” as the customer is seeing it.

There’s a part of me that cringes over the idea of having a personal GPS tracking device, and that part of me believes the invasive nature of this application may be detrimental to reaching its goals. However, if Qriously does catch on, this could mean big things for market research, logistics and strategic planning. If Qriously tells Jimmy Johns in Denton that the ‘Pepe’ is far more popular than the ‘Totally Tuna’, perhaps they will look into buying more supplies for the former? If a new billboard is a hit in Denton, but fails to impress in Lewisville – that company may save a ton removing the latter.

Those are just a few examples that popped into my mind, but I have a feeling a lot more could be done if Qriously catches on. I’d recommend keeping an eye on them in the next year or so.

By: Katy Hartwick