kechapman94-blog

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LinkedIn: The Future of Corporate Recruiting

For this week’s media switch up I chose to explore a platform that I have a lot of experience with, but have been largely absent from over the last two years. LinkedIn is an employment-oriented service that can be used for professional networking and posting jobs.

2016 was my first real experience utilizing LinkedIn as I was preparing to graduate from the University of Virginia and looking for a job. I quickly began to realize how useful of a tool it was for connecting with corporate recruiters and finding job postings. It’s spinoff app, LinkedIn Jobs, provides an even more direct listing of jobs in a specified location for your convenience. The application allows you to build a profile which can act as a digital resume and be viewed by individuals looking for talent to add to their company. You can also apply directly to some jobs with your profile, which simplifies the application process. Furthermore, I have found that the application is an excellent way to learn about your future employers/supervisors prior to interviewing so that you can make some sort of connection with them.

Since joining the army I haven’t had much use for the application. My contract prevents me from accepting any immediate offers of employment so I rarely even log into the app. I am set to finish my contract in December and will be close to finishing this program at that time. The combination of the two has led me to consider a renewed interest in the platform. As I prepare to transition back to the civilian world, LinkedIn offers the best opportunity for me to reach out to companies for employment. I will likely return to using the platform daily as I work to narrow down my options for the future.

When it comes to to demographics, individuals aged 25-30 years old are by far the largest users of LinkedIn with 44% of them utilizing the site (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/). This is not surprising as Millennials have begun a trend of frequently changing jobs rather than settling for the conditions at an undesirable location for years on end. Furthermore, this is the age range of individuals recently graduated from undergrad or enrolled in graduate school so it makes sense that they would frequent a platform built for professional networking.

Typically businesses use the application to promote job opportunities or as a form of brand advertisement. I worked for a pr firm and my supervisor would have all of the account managers share articles related to the firm on our personal LinkedIn pages, as well as that of the company. It can prove to be an effective marketing tool if your employees have a wide range of connections on the application.

As corporate culture continues to be dynamic, it will be interesting to see if LinkedIn serves as the basis for remote interviewing rather than paying travel costs for a potential employee to visit an office. The recent shutdown of businesses due to COVID-19 shows the importance of having the ability to work and continue with operations remotely. Either way, I can only envision the popularity of the application to increase as digital media continues to revolutionize the ways in which we interact.

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(Twitter) Fame is Fleeting

This week for my media switch up I chose to explore a familiar, yet constantly evolving platform: Twitter. I used to tweet incessantly. In fact, during the 2020 Summer Olympics I found myself in “twitter jail” after tweeting too many times in one day due to my excitement for the Track & Field events. There was a hashtag created for #tracknation to take over twitter, and as an avid track athlete I was almost obligated to express my passion through the digital platform.I must say that while I still frequent this platform, I typically do so as a passive observer occasionally liking tweets, but no longer tweeting constantly as I once did. Perhaps that will change in the near future.

Part of what has made Twitter so popular is the ability to connect with individuals worldwide who share your interests, and to do this in real-time with replies and retweets. Furthermore, drafting popular tweets or linking videos from other platforms such as TikTok has led to the creation of the phrase “Twitter Famous”, in which individuals garner a mass social media following because of the content they post. Its no surprise that the pressure that 38% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18-29, as this age group typically dominates social media platforms (https://www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/) and are largely responsible for the creation of the Social Media Influencer Profession.

The desire to share experiences with your timeline has led Twitter to introduce a long overdue feature, known as “fleeting.” The feature will be tested in Brazil as of Wednesday March 4, 2020 and will allow users to post photo/video content that will disappear after 24 hours (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/twitter-is-finally-doing-stories).

If it sounds like this feature is familiar it’s because it is. Other platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat already afford users the ability to post video content on “stories.” Twitter is hoping that the disappearing content will encourage those users who may be hesitant for traditional tweets to share more everyday thoughts on the platform.

Many brands already maintain Twitter accounts as a means of communicating with their customers. This new feature only adds to that capability and can increase visibility with short 24 hour commercials that encourage daily viewing of the brand’s page by consumers. I am curious to see if we witness the creation of TikTok-like video content on these fleets for advertising purposes.

As digital media platforms continue to evolve it seems that we are growing more and more towards one homogeneous platform. In some ways it is surprising to see Twitter venture into the realm of stories when it has been done before. At the same time, the need to compete is clearly greater than the need for innovation. I don’t see Twitter unseating Instagram or Snapchat due to those platforms being explicitly focused on visual content. However, I would not be surprised to see a merger between some of these applications in the next decade.

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Vine/Byte: The rise and fall(and maybe revival?) of a brand

This week I wanted to discuss a digital platform that I mentioned in my post about TikTok. Vine was the original short-video platform allowing users to post 6-second looping clips.

Vine was created at an opportune time, which is what makes its disappearance incredibly intriguing. The application was created in 2012 when social media was becoming a widespread phenomenon. Facebook and Twitter were already well-established, as well as the newly developed Instagram. Vine videos could be shared via Twitter and Facebook which provided a sort of free marketing for the application to users who may not be aware of its existence.

I can remember being in my college dorm room with friends watching vines for hours after class. The phrase “Do it for the Vine” only added to the app’s popularity by encouraging users to perform various dances or dares on camera. Vine was ahead of its time with regards to creativity and viral streaming.

The most widespread users of this application were Millennials like myself. We were roughly the same age as Gen Z is now with TikTok, and shared a similar fascination with the short video clips present on Vine.

The most surprising thing about Vine is its rapid decline in popularity and the disabling of the upload feature in 2016 by Twitter (which had acquired Vine in 2013 shortly after its creation). Brands such as Dunkin’ Donuts had capitalized on Vine’s success for Super Bowl commercials which likely laid the groundwork for the use of TikTok as a marketing tool.

As other applications such as Instagram began to incorporate video features, Vine was likely becoming obsolete. The short 6-second videos were usurped by longer 15-second iterations on other platforms. The competition would ultimately lead Twitter (which had acquired Vine in 2012) to disable the upload feature of Vine, effectively killing the application. Users are still able to access an archive of old Vine videos to relive memories, but the application itself will see no new content(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)).

Fast forward to January 24, 2020 and on the 7th anniversary of Vine’s creation, its successor Byte was officially launched. The format is similar to vine with 6-second looping videos being the main focus. However, there is an added focus on compensating users for their creativity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(service)). It is possible that as the company unveils the compensation plan, it will attract a wide audience, however I am interested to see if it can compete in a space dominated by TIkTok.

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#LongLiveYouTube

This week I decided to revisit an old friend for the media switch up. I hardly ever use this app anymore, but I was completely enthralled by it when came into existence.

I can remember the early days of  video-sharing app, YouTube where I would spend hours watching various videos. Before the website was turned into an app, and advertisements were added before videos, it was simply a place for creatives to post content and viewers to enjoy. The impact of YouTube can be seen with the story of rapper Soulja Boy. His “Crank Dat” song became a hit after he shot a video performing a catchy dance that he had created for the song. This dance catapulted the young rapper into stardom before he was even 18 years old and inspired a wave of spin-off dance songs that united a generation.

In recent years I’ve begun to stray away from YouTube. Once the site became monetized and you had to sit through or skip over advertisements every time you wanted to watch a video, I lost interest. Despite my own feelings, it seems that YouTube is still wildly popular.

YouTube has remained so relevant that there is an entire profession known as a YouTuber. These individuals post videos of themselves singing, playing pranks, discussing relationships, etc. to catch the public’s attention. They are then paid based on the number of subscribers they have (http://www.blogs2017.buprojects.uk/sammili/2018/01/16/the-new-profession-youtuber/). It seems that the public has such a fascination with following the lives of others, that this is in fact a lucrative profession, provided that the YouTuber is able to continuously provide entertaining content.

Use of this application is dominated by millennials who say they prefer YouTube over television at a rate of 2:1 (https://www.omnicoreagency.com/youtube-statistics/). This stat does not surprise me as many of the famous YouTubers are themselves millennials and it makes sense that their content would attract viewers with the same mindset.

It seems that YouTube will remain relevant and perhaps it will manage to recapture my attention as well. The creation of YouTube Red, now called YouTube Premium, is a welcome improvement. Previously, the music played on the application would stop if you closed the app. You also had to deal with advertisements as companies have begun to use the platform for marketing. Now with a subscription, a user can have the music play in the “background” even with the app closed, and skip the commercial content that those without a subscription must sit through. These are definitely enticing improvements if a user is willing to pay.

I’m confident that YouTube will continue to have a strong following. In an age where we are becoming increasingly reliant on digital media to connect with others, YouTubers will continue to enjoy success. Furthermore, companies such as Apple will continue to reap the benefits of this forcible advertising (I’ve seen an advertisement for the slo-mo iPhone 11 feature at least 10 times while creating this blog) and I ultimately purchased an iPhone 11 Pro so I guess it has some merit. It will be interesting to see if we reach a point where the constant interaction via social media becomes too much and the public begins to shy away from using these applications. I’d be curious to revisit this topic in 10 years to see if YouTubers are still employed, but for now it seems they will continue to have an audience!

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Periscope

This week I wanted to focus on a digital media that I had zero familiarity with. I’ve chosen to go with Periscope as I have no experience whatsoever with this app and was completely unaware of its existence before this week.

Periscope is an app that lets you share and live stream video from your smartphone. (https://www.webwise.ie/parents/explainer-what-is-periscope/). The app allows for real-time interaction as viewers are able to comment and chat with the individual doing the streaming. Periscope reminds me of the popular Instagram Live or Facebook Live features so I am interested to see if the app enjoys longevity.

The app appears to be popular among sports enthusiasts. I am a huge sports fan and utilizing this app would’ve been extremely helpful while I was stationed in Korea! I missed out on so many games and I was so excited to come home in time for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, only to see the Patriots lose the week before. It almost made me consider staying in Korea to avoid the trash talk from my friends in the states. (Ok, so not really, but I was hurt to say the least lol). Utilizing Periscope to have friends livestream games would’ve been amazing, especially during UVA Men’s Basketball’s improbable run to the national championship.

When it comes to who is using Periscope, millennials dominate by far. It is not surprising to see this as this generation has witnessed the shift towards digital media from traditional forms of media.

To capitalize on the public’s desire to constantly record and stream events, companies have begun to use Periscope as a tool for marketing. Red Bull used the app in a campaign to advertise its products with a weekend long party in Miami. (https://www.redbull.com/us-en/red-bull-guest-house-livestream-on-rbma-radio). Blending partying with the video streaming appears to be extremely effective. Perhaps if Fyre Festival was a successful then Periscope would’ve been an effective means of marketing future iterations of the festival. I guess we’ll never know!

Overall, I think Periscope seems to be a very well-developed application. As I mentioned earlier, I am interested to see if it maintains relevance with the IG Live and Facebook Live features being so popular. Being acquired by Twitter will likely help Periscope to avoid being forgotten however. I believe the potential for live-streaming could eventually impact ticket sales to sporting events as you could simply pay someone a small fee to attend the game and stream it for you, rather than paying for travel costs, etc. to attend it in person. As we approach Super Bowl Sunday in a little over a week I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if any fans are using the app to stream the big game!

https://www.pscp.tv/redbull/1YpKkpjgrDAGj

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TikTok: The New Vine?

For my media switch up, I’ve chosen to focus on the popular new social media platform, TikTok. TikTok allows users to create short videos dancing/lip syncing.  Prior to this week, I hadn’t interacted much with the app for TikTok. A lot of the videos are shared on Twitter and Facebook so I did not feel the need to invest my attention into yet another social media application. However, once I returned to the states, one of my friends convinced me to download the app and I’ve been captivated ever since.

The most widespread users of this application appear to be Gen-Z. This makes sense because of the nature of the videos present on the app. Many of the videos are viral dance challenges that are being created as this generation comes of age. It is reminiscent of millennials’ fascination with Vine years ago. Vine was launched in the early days of social media when Instagram and Twitter were just starting to become popular. I believe had Vine launched today it would be just as popular as TikTok rather than dying out the same way that MySpace has.

One thing I found interesting about TikTok is the ability to make the videos up to 60 seconds in length. I would think that in today’s fast-paced society, it would be difficult to hold a viewer’s attention longer than 30 seconds and even that’s a stretch. However, including this feature means that brands can create fully developed commercials within the application if they so choose.

Some examples of businesses using TikTok are Chipotle and the NBA. Chipotle created a TikTok with a #GuacSong that started a #GuacChallenge in which viwewers danced with avocados. The NBA has used the app to present more personal videos of athletes working out, playing in games, or draft stories. By doing this the NBA is showing the more light-hearted side of its organization and appealing to the emotions of viewers.

Overall, TikTok is becoming a powerful social media tool. As seen with Chipotle, the app can be used as a widespread marketing tool with relatively simple execution of an idea. As the application continues to grow in popularity I think we will see more companies implore their creative departments to utilize the popularity of viral dance challenges, etc. to appeal to customers. Furthermore, I think we will see popular Youtube influencers use TikTok to drive individuals to their Youtube pages. Currently, you are unable to be paid for content on TikTok, but it can be used to divert consumers to a Youtube subscription that can be monetized.

https://www.tiktok.com/@chipotle/video/6720653674525363461