Don't "Cloak" the Problem

You may have heard the buzz surrounding a new app called Cloak. Cloak takes information from your social networks to show where your friends are, so you can avoid bumping into people that you don't want to see. It works by connecting to Foursquare and Instagram, then displaying your location and where friends have checked in nearby. If there is someone you want to avoid, simply "flag" them and Cloak will send you an alert when they are within a certain radius of you. The default radius is half a mile but can be changed to as close as one block, or as far away as two miles. In short, Cloak is as close as the app world is going to come to developing Harry Potter's mythical invisibility cloak.

Cloak seems like a dream come true for the "anti-social" or maybe for people who are just having a bad day. But is it taking things too far? Many studies have shown the positive correlation between in-person social interactions and happiness. Is essentially hiding from these potential interactions the best course of action? Honestly, probably not.

If seeing purported "friends" is causing a person enough unhappiness that they feel the need to go out of their way to avoid what would otherwise be a chance encounter, perhaps it's time to take a realistic look internally. Ask yourself if you could make it through a five minute conversation with the person you flagged.  If you can't, ask yourself why they are even your "friend" in the first place. If the person no longer has a positive, meaningful influence on your life, it may be time to cut that relationship loose.

At first glance, Cloak may seem like an innovative solution to a problem. In reality, however, Cloak is just hiding a deeper problem, possibly even compounding it. You don't need an invisibility cloak in your life. Let's leave that to Harry.

The Emotional Epidemic on Facebook

A new study shows what many have long assumed: emotions expressed online can be contagious. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, Yale University, and Facebook Inc used an automated text-analysis system to scan a billion messages from over 100 million people, and found that Facebook posts were likely to affect the mood of others online. Moreover, upbeat posts were far more likely to have an effect than negatives posts.

One of their significant findings was the influence of the weather on mood, and how it could spread amongst users. A rainy day caused the number of negative posts to rise 1.16%, while the number of positive posts fell 1.19%. A subtle change, yet it was compounded among these users' friends in other cities. In a city where it was not raining, each additional positive post resulted in a further 1.75 positive posts among friends, while each negative post resulted in a further 1.29 negative posts.

Facebook currently has 1.2 billion (with a B) active users. If posting messages about the weather alone can cause mood shifts among some users, posting emotional messages about more volatile subjects could have an emotional chain reaction. Recessions, stock market downswings, and economic difficulties could have negative emotional effects on people who are otherwise indifferent to the event. Likewise positive events could be used to influence people who may otherwise be apathetic.

So how do we use this information to our advantage? The simple answer would be post happy things on Facebook. The more complex answer would be to tie more uplifting messages to days when negative posts are trending, so the uplifting messages stand out and foster positive brand association. Obviously rainy days would be a good time to do this, but looking beyond that we can see that there are several other negative days in the year such as April 15th (aka tax day) or even Mondays.

What you post is ultimately up to you, but realize the impact you could be having on other peoples' emotions.

A New Way to Price Social Apps

WhatsApp made the news last week when it was bought by Facebook for $19 billion. People started questioning whether or not this was a smart move, and if WhatsApp was even worth that much. My thoughts went straight to how this would affect their stance on advertisements. WhatsApp had previously stated that they would not sell ads and that they were against personal information collection, two things which Facebook does extensively. Personally, I believe they were a little naive to think that they could shun advertising forever. Many social and mobile apps use the advertising model simply because it is the easiest way to turn a profit for the business, while providing a free app for the consumers. In most of these apps, consumers can opt to upgrade to a paid version, which takes away the frequent advertisements. However, many consumers are reluctant to upgrade if they think they'll be the only one using said app or if they think the lifecycle of that app will be very short.

What I propose is a new pricing model for these social apps. The apps foster a sense of community, so why not provide a pricing option that treats them as a community. Many businesses will provide customers with group discounts if a large enough party takes advantage of the product/service, so why shouldn't a group based app utilize this same ideal? Community based pricing discounts could be offered depending on the size of the group that downloaded the app, which is a double win for the app developers. They get a revenue stream without needing to spam users with advertisements, and they also get a consumer base that will be more likely to continue to use the app so that they can stay connected with their friends. The consumers win since they will be paying less for the app than they would individually, and they don't have to deal with advertisements.

This type of pricing would be most effective for social apps, like WhatsApp, or for mobile games with a strong sense of community. I've gone through several game phases with some of my friends, such as Words With Friends or Flappy Bird, and having a pricing option like this would have been very appealing. It's always more fun to challenge friends to mobile games, but they're not always willing to shell out the dollar or so that some games cost. If group pricing could reduce this cost to 50 cents, the app would seem like a bargain compared to many others, and users would be more drawn to it. The concept of group pricing still needs some tweaking before it should be implemented, but ultimately I think it would be a viable alternative to many apps' current strategy of spamming users with advertisements.

Time to Clean Up Your Profiles Kids: There's a New Social Media Stalker

My generation has been constantly drilled to watch what we post on social media sites, because the omnipresent "future employers" will see it.  Now we have a new concern: lending companies. More and more lending companies are beginning to evaluate the social media profiles of potential borrowers to determine their creditworthiness or identity. Things being considered:

• Did the applicant put the same job information on their loan application as they did on sites like LinkedIn?
• Have they shared on Facebook or Twitter that they've recently been let go?
• Have they received negative reviews on sites like eBay?
• Does your company get a lot of "likes" on Facebook, and are they responding to their customers?
• Is someone logging in from an expensive mobile phone like an iPhone, or from an Internet cafe?
• What is their network like?

All of these questions, and more, can determine if a borrower will get a loan or if their application will be rejected. Proponents say this method can help small businesses with a strong social presence, who may otherwise be rejected on numbers alone. Others argue it's an invasion of privacy, and lenders are overstepping their bounds.

While the thought of someone searching through my social media history is a little scary, I think lenders are within their rights to do this. Wouldn't you want to know as much about a person as possible before loaning them money? As students we should be prepared for extra scrutiny. Annual figures released by the Department of Education showed that one in ten students defaulted on their loans within the first two years, the highest since 1995. The past six years have shown growth in the number students defaulting on their loans, so it's safe to assume most lenders are getting more hesitant about lending to students. And even if students graduate debt free, chances are most will take out loans for their first car or house. 

I think it's time to start cleaning up our social media profiles, before it's too late. 

Spoiled Olympic Brats? That's #SoSochi

Friday ushered in the official start of the 2014 Winter Olympics, but problems had begun long before that. Athletes arrived to unfinished hotels, thousands of stray dogs roamed the streets, news stories were released daily citing Russian corruption and its controversial stance on gay rights. Naturally social media exploded.

As of this writing, the Twitter account @SochiProblems has 339 thousand followers, over 100,000 more than the 31.6 thousand followers the official Olympics Twitter account, @2014Sochi, has.

Now I'm all for health standards and a safe place to stay, but honestly these Western reporters and athletes are taking things too far. The Olympics is supposed to be about the countries of the world coming together. It's supposed to promote tolerance and cultural understanding. Yet all I can hear about on the news or read about on social media sites are the problems, which aren't even that critical in the grand scheme of things. Globally 870 million went to bed hungry last night, if they even had a bed to go to. I'm supposed to empathize with an American athlete who had trouble picking out an ice cream from his menu because someone didn't perfectly translate Russian to English? Right.

For those complaining about the water situation, 783 million people do not have access to clean water. In fact, most Russians do not have access to tap water, let alone clean tap water.

It's time for us to be a little less ethnocentric, and a little more understanding. Russia is still viewed as a developing nation, so I'd hardly expect the level of luxury we have the privilege to experience as a developed nation. Does that mean this Olympics should be deemed a failure? No. If anything will deem this Olympics a failure, it will be the spoiled, self-centered athletes who care more about promoting problems through social media than taking advantage if their incredible opportunities.

A Bold, Yet Brilliant, Move By J.C. Penney

During the Super Bowl on Sunday night, J.C. Penney released several tweets with spelling and grammatical errors, leading many to believe that the person controlling the account was drunk.

Other brands hopped on J.C. Penney’s tweets as a chance to promote their own brand, such as KIA and Snickers. 

Many are still unsure as to whether the original tweets were planned, or just a sign of incompetence, but in my opinion the strategy was brilliant. These two tweets earned more than 41,000 retweets during the Super Bowl, and have generated a social media buzz unlike anything J.C. Penney has ever seen. As a comparison, the number of retweets on the J.C. Penney account the week before the game averaged only 20 per tweet. 

J.C. Penney has been on a downward slope, announcing last month that it planned to close 33 stores and eliminate 2,000 jobs in order to save $65 million a year. Stock prices have fallen 71% in the past twelve months. Now more than ever J.C. Penney needs to regain market share and increase sales. 

These tweets were a bold move, and J.C. Penney needs to strike again while the iron is hot to ensure success. Tweeting more poorly typed messages isn’t going to cut it here. Those were interesting and unexpected, a one-time novelty if you will, and following them up with other sloppy tweets would kill the appeal. J.C. Penney needs to take the time to engage with its customers, and share quality content while they still have the spotlight. Many consumers may think their stunt was funny and follow them, but unless they manage to convert these potential customers into sales, their tweets were a waste of time. 

Their final tweet of the sloppily typed saga explained that they had been typing with mittens. It was somewhat of a letdown, after expecting a funny story or further excitement from the brand. A better move in my opinion would’ve been something along the lines of “Oops it seems we had a little too much fun last night. Here’s your chance to have some fun too with a 15% off coupon”. A move like that provides a humorous ending to the story, and gives consumers a call to action that could increase sales in stores. Regardless, we’ll see if their marketing strategy pays off in the upcoming quarter. 

Is Marketing to Blacks on Twitter #winning?

African Americans have historically been a difficult demographic to market towards, but Twitter could be making it easier. According to a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, roughly 18% of Twitter’s users are black. This doesn’t seem very significant, until one takes into account that that’s nearly twice the 10% of US Internet users who are black, and more than the 11% of black users Facebook has. Furthermore, 40% of black Internet users aged 18-29 use Twitter, whereas only 28% of whites in the same age group do.

At the time of this writing, Black People Tweet (@BlkPplTweet) had 117,031 followers. The Atlanta Journal Constitution (@ajc) only has 109,055. Black People Tweet essentially has a bigger immediate reach than a paper that reaches 1.4 million print readers weekly, not to mention the countless Internet readers as well.

Black Twitter followers, using #BlackTwitter, have recently started using their power as a social community to enact change. When Paula Deen used racist language, Black Twitter called for her to lose her job and then she was fired. When it was felt that African American females were underrepresented on the show SNL, Black Twitter called for a change and new cast members were hired. Black Twitter also played a huge role in the Trayvon Martin media buzz, with contributions to the 5 million tweets sent in the first 26 hours after the verdict was announced. Black Twitter even went as far as to protest a book planned by a juror in the Trayvon Martin case, causing the agent to drop the book deal. 

Clearly African Americans have a huge influence in the Twitter community, and know how to use this community to their advantage. They comprise a large demographic that marketers need to start focusing more on. However, this demographic comes with challenges that many businesses are unprepared for. Black users are more likely than others to reply to each other’s tweets, follow each other, and retweet each other’s tweets. Black users are also more likely to use a different lexicon in their tweets. Marketers should take note of this and attempt to provide an authentic, engaging experience in order to foster interaction. 

Twitter is a unique platform in that it has a sense of immediacy most other social media platforms lack. Many people check it for instantaneous news updates and developments. The combination of this immediacy and the general disposition among black users, can cause them to behave strongly in one direction at any given moment. This could provide the tipping point for the right product or service, or could potentially damage a company’s reputation for coming across as racially insensitive. 

Word to the wise: Try to be the former, not another Paula Deen.