Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& sometimes tech) news. Come back weekly for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week! 

• It’s the 100th Social Media Notes! How exciting. If you’re in the Edmonton area, I’d love to give away a 1-hour social media consult to celebrate the 100th version of these weekly notes! (I hope this is appealing to people lol) Get more details and enter the giveaway through the Rafflecopter widget below!

• I thought this was really interesting: an Edmonton candidate for Ward 12 is using Tinder to woo voters (love the lead of the story: Edmonton singles looking for love on the dating app Tinder may soon have to worry about swiping left wing or right wring, rather than just saying yay or nay to potential partners!) Haha. I wonder how effective it will be – at the very least it would get her name/face in front of potential, young voters!

• I love when brands are funny and clever online – like the City of Boston last week, when a man commented on the city’s newly-designed webpage with ‘needs moar cat pix.’

• Who else has been seeing this horrible stick figure/personality description meme popping up all over Facebook? It’s the worst. Still, so interesting to see how something becomes ‘viral’ online.

• Vine – Twitter’s six-second looping video platform – turned three-years-old! Here are the most-watched Vines of the year. 

• When your CEO doesn’t have faith in you, you could get the boot… like four top execs at Twitter, who were let go (or resigned on their own terms, it’s sort of unclear) in a big executive restructuring.

• Check out this good read on the growing social media skills gap at companies. Don’t just expect a millenial to be able to do social media from a business perspective. Growing up being surrounded by or plugged into social networks does not mean you can do it professionally, for your company. Just as being ‘old’ doesn’t mean you ‘can’t do’ or ‘don’t get’ social. Social media education is slowly being incorporated into university programs, and there are a lot more continuing education type of courses out there now too.

• Here’s another sad read about Twitter’s downward spiral. (I still love you, Twitter).

• I don’t see myself hyperventilating if I didn’t have access to Twitter but this story about how a Twitter outage can affect the health of its users is a good reminder that social media use can be an addiction for a lot of people and it can affect you in a serious way!

• This is a horrible story but great reminder for parents, kids, teens, anyone who uses the Internet really – on being careful and safe online.

• I’ll be curious to see if this helps them expand their user base (or get more users that don’t bully anonymously) – but Yik Yak has now launched a web version.

• Showing they are hip and with the latest trends, the Philadelphia Police Department released a Drake Hotline Bling remix online last week to get their parking message across! Pretty funny (though terrible audio quality).

• If someone has a restraining order against you and that person tags you on Facebook – is that violating the restraining order? According to a New York judge – yes, yes it does.

• A newly-designed chat feature looks to be coming to Snapchat, including a different look and the use of stickers, plus more audio and video type of calling functions.

• It also looks like they’re testing different functions with their Story feature – I kept getting this prompt to add my snaps to their ‘NBA story’ today. I could see this making it really easy for their curation team to get content for specific topics/events, if people just get the option to submit them easily like that!

• The Edmonton International Airport has launched a social media campaign called the #EIAGreatJetaway! They’re asking users to nominate a loved one for a dream trip (valued at $10,000) – all you have to do is upload a photo or video, nominate the person, and tag others to get them to nominate their loved ones too. Pretty easy way to gift someone an awesome trip of a lifetime.

• We already know online reviews/social media posts can influence someone’s decision to try, do, buy things, but a new survey says the millennial generation especially (aged 18-34) are more liekly to buy a product if they see it has been shared, liked, or favourited online. 

• You know a product, service, or business is in trouble when they delete their social media accounts… Google Glass (as we had known it) really is dead.

•  I thought I had a pretty good idea what women search for on Pinterest but men? Who knows. Well, Pinterest does, and now so do you. Check out their list of what men search for on Pinterest vs. what women search for.

• Congratulations to the team behind Pride Tape! The local Kickstarter project reached their funding goal with more than a week to go. Pride tape on hockey sticks = showing support to LGBTQ players!

• I liked this read on Instagram’s Chief Operating Officer – Marne Levine – who is celebrating one year as one of the world’s most popular social networking app’s bosses. The lead is great: “I’m a terrible photographer.” She also makes some predictions about the U.S. election being the most visual ever.

• Check out the week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favs: 1, 9, 17, 24, 25, and 27!

** GIVEAWAY **

To celebrate my 100th Social Media Notes, I’m giving away a one-hour social media consult with … me! (I hope that is appealing to people, lol) 

All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, telling me what aspects of social media would you like to most improve or learn about! Want to learn about Snapchat? Tips to build a better online brand? Figuring out Twitter or Instagram your resolution for the year? Or maybe you just want an audit of your current social media and suggestions on what or how to improve things?

Leave a comment, then check it off in the Rafflecopter widget below.

Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!

Linda

Follow @lindork