socialglance

[socialglance]

An Audit of Penn State Abington’s Social Media

Penn State Abington’s social media is spread across a few key platforms. These include Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. However, a good social media audit goes further than simply a list of platforms and the content there; it includes the traits the organization advertises. In this regard, the organization puts its students at the forefront, advertising events by demonstrating what causes its members support. An example can be found in recent posts about events made to raise awareness for and support those suffering the crisis in Ukraine. 

I must admit that Penn State Abington could be doing better to promote its content. Although its content has a strong voice and its values are easily identified, it is notable that its accounts only have about 2000-3000 followers. For a college with thousands of students, prospective students, and graduates, this is not much. In my opinion, this stems from the organization’s lack of engagement with followers. Its tweets, for example, sometimes retweet related content but are mostly links to articles about events at the school with a brief description. Although this is informative, it does not particularly stand out. Those directly involved with these events may interact with them, but to someone with no connection, it does not draw the eye. From what I can gather, the accounts are run by specifically-designated people at the organization, but I cannot see if these are social media experts. I would recommend that Penn State Abington revamps its internal efforts regarding social media if that is not the case.

Penn State Abington’s Twitter account.

A competitor to Penn State Abington could be one of the other branch campuses such as Altoona or Harrisburg; I don’t think it is fair to pit it against main campuses such as University Park or Temple University as these will obviously have a wider audience. These competitors are doing similarly to Penn State Abington. However, I do notice that Penn State Harrisburg tends to have tweets every so often that get a considerable amount of interaction whereas Penn State Abington does not. I surmise that this comes from more relatable content being posted; although the quality and quantity is generally the same between the branch campuses, Harrisburg does seem to do better with trends. 

A recent post from Penn State Harrisburg.

Overall, Penn State Abington could benefit from an internal and external revamp of its social media. It has a strength in that it can draw from a wide base of alumni and current students, but it does not appeal to this wider audience, instead focusing on more niche events at the school. If it took this opportunity and combined it with my previous suggestion of changes internally as well as more relatable content, I could certainly see its followers and interaction increasing.

[socialglance]

Samsung Notes--Marketing To Gen Z

The values of Generation Z are easily identifiable once you know what to look for. We care about what our money says—we vote with it, almost. We won’t hesitate to look into the background of whoever we’re buying from, and we particularly enjoy a brand with a personality. From a chaotic world, we crave ways to innovate and uncomplicate things wherever possible. Entrepreneurship is something we value, and, notoriously, we’re tech-savvy. With all these facets, a marketing strategy might seem obvious. However, the devil is in the details. For example, take Samsung’s new Samsung Notes app. How could a simple notes app be so appealing to this demographic?

Samsung Notes many uses, and can be used on various devices.

The key is to develop a good, informed, detailed strategy. This starts with a message. To what values of Gen Z can the Samsung Notes app cater? The obvious answer is entrepreneurship. Every aspiring entrepreneur needs a quick, easy way to jot things down. Samsung Notes is even better, enabling users to record themselves, scan documents, attach PDF files, and more. From this comes the first message: “Your life in one click.” It is crucial, when marketing this product to Gen Z, to emphasize the consolidation of so many important tools in one place. Being able to access all of this from one app already makes it superior to Apple’s Notes app, something used by practically every member I know of this generation.

Another innovative feature of Samsung Notes is the ability to share photos and other content with other users. This appeals to the tech-savviness of my generation, and, again, it simplifies things a great deal. “Share your world,” one might bill this. But marketing to us is more than simply telling. We have to see why we should purchase from you. This is where a social media campaign comes in. Imagine a campaign in which users are encouraged to share how Samsung Notes has helped them—for, say, a giveaway prize. This has the secondary effect of marketing to others who are following whomever participates, and it encourages people to purchase the app and try it out so they can win something. Another similar, though markedly different, approach might involve sponsoring series popular with Gen Z (such as HBO’s Euphoria) and having the characters use the app. One example of this can be seen with Freeform’s Grownish and its characters’ use of the Google Pixel phone. This sort of advertising guarantees that the target audience will see your product and its uses.

Freeform’s Grownish makes use of the Google Pixel phone to display conversations between characters, advertising its elements to viewers.

Overall, marketing to Generation Z is more complicated than it looks. But never fear--Just get to know us. That’s the first step, and the rest will come much more easily.

[socialglance]

Amazon and Sustainability... Too Good To Be True?

Visit Amazon’s “about” website and you will find—amidst facts about how well it treats its workers and announcements of releases across its various iterations—glowing pledges and news about its environmental dedication. An entire page on this site is dedicated to its work on more sustainable practices. Its business website highlights how consumers can become more socially responsible. The company’s goals seem clear; obviously, it gives as much to the world as the world gives to it.

One look at any example of Amazon’s many, many social media accounts seems to tell the same story. Recent posts on its main Twitter account discuss the company’s recent efforts to switch to electrically-powered delivery vehicles. If that wasn’t enough, it also touts its support of sustainable small businesses as well as its recyclable packaging.

A recent tweet of Amazon’s.

This united front in messaging should come as no surprise when considering such a massive company. Of course it has social media managers and individuals dedicated to nailing its public relations down to a science—it is one of the most well-known brands in the world, after all. But in a time when so many individuals and corporations are “cancelled” online for cognitive dissonance, what can we learn from Amazon? Quite a lot, it would seem. Although most—including myself—might look with suspicion at this supposedly socially responsible major corporation, it does seem to be making efforts to make good on its promises. In 2019, it created and led The Climate Pledge, a call-to-action for itself and other corporations to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040 in support of the Paris Climate Accords. Many have lauded this, especially given that several other large corporations have joined it, including but not limited to PepsiCo, Visa, and Heineken.

Amazon also carries a variety of products that are “Climate Pledge Friendly”, even offering a significant discount on them in addition to investing in renewable energy. It almost seems too good to be true… and, in some ways, it is. All of this came only after widespread criticism of Amazon’s sluggish response to its impact on climate change. It is still responsible for large amounts of plastic reaching ours oceans, and its data centers require large amounts of electricity. Even after The Climate Pledge was announced, Amazon’s 2020 sustainability report revealed that its carbon footprint had grown by 15%. To add insult to injury, Amazon announced it had renamed the location of the 1962 World’s Fair “The Amazon Climate Pledge Arena”.

The Amazon Climate Pledge Arena.

What does this mean? Is Amazon’s strategic, well-polished social media marketing and company identity a failure? Well… not entirely. As a large corporation, it must be acknowledged that those in charge at Amazon may not have sustainability at the forefront of their priorities. But all of this action has come from pressure. Therefore, this means that we cannot take the pressure off of them. We must continue to tweet, write, and do whatever we can to remind Amazon that the world is watching. The power of the people through social media has worked before. Why shouldn’t it work again?

[socialglance]

Kanye West And The Dangers Of The Parasocial Relationship

Let’s get the obvious over with. You’re sick of hearing about the Kardashians. I am, too. I think we’re all jaded by it. I’m fairly certain that there is no one on the Internet who doesn’t know who they are. Like a Philly soft pretzel and mustard, those two things just go together. And, as I have mentioned in previous posts, there is no doubt that a dark side to this kind of visibility exists. But this week, it seems to have gotten darker. It’s time to talk about Kanye West’s recent behavior toward his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.

Kim and Kanye (sometimes called “Kimye”) have been an iconic couple for many years. Everything about them seems to be part of social media history--the names and announcements of their children, their wedding, their red carpet appearances, their fashion. A decade ago when their relationship began and became official on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kanye raided Kim’s closet to refine her style, making her cry in the process. By the end of that year they were expecting a baby. And when one of them had drama, the other was not far behind--just ask Taylor Swift about the infamous phone call Kim posted on the Internet to defend her husband during that whole messy feud (which is another can of worms to open in the world of social media case studies... and one I might tackle soon). Though neither half of the couple was a stranger to scandal, Kanye in particular has accrued a history of outbursts and questionable decisions which have made him a polarizing figure in pop culture. Kim has defended him through this, pointing out his struggles with mental illness. However, though she still stood by him, on January 5th, 2021 it was confirmed that she was going to divorce him. 

One of many times Kim has taken to Twitter in Kanye’s defense--in this case over his decision to support Donald Trump.

Efforts were definitely made to do this in a manner that would be conducive to coparenting, but this is where the past week comes in. Kanye West has repeatedly harassed Kim through social media, especially after her relationship with Pete Davidson was made official. This has included posting screenshots of private text conversations in which Kim voices discomfort with such a thing, swearing to repair his family, implying he will bring harm to Pete, and asking for parenting advice on his Instagram stories while critizing Kim’s decisions regarding the subject. These posts are often deleted soon after. Why, might you ask, is this particularly newsworthy if the Kardashians have made a business out of framing their lives through social media? The answer is simple: This is dangerous. Really dangerous.

One of many text exchanges posted by Kanye.

I am the first to criticize the Kardashian-Jenner clan, and I have. But at the end of the day, a line needs to be drawn. Anyone can become an influencer with enough skill. The Kardashians capitalize off of it and certainly have a privilege in the publicity already granted to them by their wealth and their father, Robert, and what they do is not harmless. But anyone can post a selfie. Similarly, any man can harass his ex-wife online. It is a situation no one should experience, and we need to recognize this for what it is even when it is playing out between celebrities--especially in that case. The Kardashian-Jenners have been scrutinized in every way for their use of social media, and this must not be any different. It is no longer just a matter of Kanye West’s mental health when he is actively harassing and threatening people, especially when it targets someone who has defended him through all his previous firestorms. 

So... What does this mean, then? Well, we do not know what is playing out in private. We only know what has been posted, and we may never know everything. What is clear is that everyone has a chance to learn from this. Social media can be a weapon in more ways than people realize. Kanye West still has many commenters supporting him, viewing him as a man who is just trying to get his family back. It is not so simple, and that, perhaps, is why he chose such a public platform for this. Out of his millions of followers, knowing more will come forth when they see his name trending, some people will rally behind him and join his effort to pressure Kim into something she does not want. While this may seem random, it is, in my opinion, very strategic, and we all have a chance to recognize how our perceptions of a situation can be influenced based on whose side of the story is receiving more publicity. We all have a chance to realize how damaging it is that this parasocial relationship has been normalized. And we all have a chance to recognize dangerous, abusive behavior so that we can condemn it, hopefully sending a message in the process that this is not okay.

[socialglance]

Social Media: The Good, The Bad, The Downright Fake

“Ten bad things about social media,” article after article is headlined. “Social media is ruining our teenagers,” many a parent has lamented. But, after enough time, these statements are just that--statements. We glance over them in our daily scrolling. We’ve all heard them ad nauseum. What’s the truth?

Mark Zuckerberg, the man at the center of scandal and success for his co-founding of Facebook and virtual monopoly on social media, doesn’t seem to believe we should slow down. At least, he won’t. In late 2021, he announced an ambitious rebranding of his infamous tech company. Its name would change to Meta, and that was only the beginning. Zuckerberg’s 2021 Founder’s Letter began with a bold statement: “We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it’s the next chapter for our company too.” He goes on to envision a digital future in which holograms are commonplace and the world is seen behind augmented reality glasses. This is all, of course, thanks to Meta’s new innovation, the Metaverse. The Metaverse will be a grand Internet utopia brought to life by various creators, a sort of online world complete with online purchases and avatars. We will all but live in this world someday, Mark Zuckerberg seems to believe. This makes sense to me. Not ethically, of course, but it is certainly the logical next step for Meta and Zuckerberg if Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is to be believed.

Facebook’s rebrand--the Meta logo.

Haugen is firm in her conviction that this company has always prioritized profit over ethics. She was only one whistleblower; another submitted information to the Washington Post that echoed her statements. According to this second individual, the political controversy, misinformation, and unrest for which the Facebook platform is known is all something its creators and managers are well-aware of, but these things fade with time. Money does not. And parents’ concerns over their children’s screen time may be vindicated; Meta has studied the effects of its products on the young mind, and it has found compelling evidence for its toxicity. Suicidal thoughts, eating disorders and body dysmorphia, addiction--all of these are clearly attested to as effects of Instagram and Facebook on teenagers. But any astute observer of this world has been aware of these things for some time. Anyone in proximity of children knows how they are attracted to phones, and anyone close to teenagers knows how eager they are to begin using Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat, and more. What does Facebook say? 

Facebook says that social media is responsible for connecting young people to their peers, and is even working on an Instagram-based platform for those under the age of 13. This does not answer the question of how to solve the issues it causes, but it does bring up an interesting point, and one I am personally familiar with. Social media is, well, social. And in a world mid-pandemic, it has allowed me to remain connected to my friends and family. It has also introduced me to people I would have never met without it. It has introduced me to many new interests, and it has allowed me to stay in-the-know about world events. Only twenty years ago, none of this would be possible. My world goes beyond Pennsylvania suburbs, and it has connected me to friends in Washington, California, Hawaii, Texas, and even Canada. I speak to these people just as often as I speak to the friends whom I met traditionally. I know couples who would never have come together without social media. By extension, I know families that would never have been made without it. All these things have brought new joy into lives, and I do not think anyone can say the world would be better without them. At our core, we are human, and we crave connection. We need to seek out others like us, and we want to be close to them. Whatever else is true of the online landscape unique to this modern age, I think that is beautiful.

It doesn’t erase the bad, though. I have also seen that personally. I spent my formative years watching celebrities edit their photos and push diet trends on Instagram (I’m looking at you, Kim Kardashian, with your appetite-suppressant lollipops). As a teenage girl with an emerging anxiety disorder, this did not help me. “Why don’t I look like that?” I would think as I scrolled through Instagram after school in sweatpants and hoodies, bombarded by countless posts of stars in faces made-up by professional makeup artists and dressed by professional stylists. ”Why doesn’t it look the same?” I would wonder after I’d watched a makeup tutorial to perfect a new eyeshadow look... only to see about twelve Youtube beauty gurus with ring lights and editing software do it better. Even now, at 20, I catch myself doing these things. It’s a difficult habit to break, especially when your formative years are filled with it. But I’ve come to realize something now that I couldn’t seem to grasp then, and it seems so simple that I wonder how I didn’t realize it--these people have entire teams behind them, more money than me, and hired professionals to curate their posts. While I have 24 hours in a day, they possess 24 multiplied by however many employees they have. It isn’t the same, and it’s never going to be. Social media distorts the young mind in that way. And all my friends, from Washington to Hawaii to these Pennsylvania suburbs, have experienced the same thing.

Kim Kardashian’s now-deleted appetite-suppressant lollipop ad.

The bottom line is that while countless adults argue in Congress over what Facebook, or Meta, or Mark Zuckerberg knew, and what social media does, they lack a key experience. They did not grow up with it. Those who did have a unique perspective. The company is right in that it connects us, but that does not mean it is perfect. Barring a massive blackout, we are never going to return to a world with no Internet and no social media. While I cannot say with any certainty that Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a Metaverse-dominated future will become a(n augmented) reality, I can say this: we need to do better. The future of social media does not lie entirely in what new devices and features it may evolve, but in how it affects our society. Facebook, Instagram, and the rest are not going to fade into unexistence at this point. Their places in our world are rather sturdy. And they have accomplished connection in countless ways. Though there may be unforeseen innovations to this end which we cannot dream of now, we certainly have enough to keep us sated presently. So perhaps the answer lies not in taking us from this flawed world and into a new and improved one. Perhaps the answer to the quandary of social media’s flaws and benefits does not come from making us less real. Maybe, just maybe, we need to focus on how it hurts us because we are human--how it distorts our perception and depresses us. Facebook may change its name to Meta, but it will only become the “company of the future” it seeks to be if it improves our present. And that may mean putting people over profit.

[socialglance]

The Story of a Tweet Gone Rogue

Social media has become a major fixture of my life as a 20-year-old. Undoubtedly, this is true for nearly everyone else my age. I signed up for my first Instagram account in middle school after avoiding it for months; I was self-conscious, and uncomfortable with what I thought was the only use for it--sharing selfies. I was quickly proven wrong, however, and learned that Instagram had evolved from a photo-sharing app to one that spreads memes and connects people. It connected me to many friends I still have today. When we aren't talking, we are texting. The very nature of social media means that this isn't an uncommon thing, although Instagram's creators likely did not expect it to come out of their photo-sharing app when they created it. These days, nothing that comes of the Internet can be anticipated. Social media often surprises us in that way.

One of these friends of mine, named May, is quite active on Twitter, as we all are. We enjoy tweeting things we find amusing, important, or mildly interesting. When May tweeted photos poking fun at an individual named Misha (whose details will not be revealed in this post for reasons later explained) who had plastic surgery to look Asian, it was mostly for our amusement. We all felt it was disgustingly racist that someone would do such a thing. May is herself an Asian woman and, when asked what it made her feel, said that it "happened during the cusp of eastern Asian culture becoming a lot more popularized in the west." She had already seen Oli London, a white influencer, get a similar surgery, and was more mildly annoyed and at a loss for words rather than upset or surprised. On the entire phenomenon of this surgery, May says, "I think it's a common Asian sentiment to harbor anger towards people who try to become Asian after years of growing up in an environment where we were mocked for our features while still struggling under the weight of the expectations set on us as the 'model minority'". Her tweet was created out of this loss for a way to react, more joking about the situation than anything else. She posted it and fell asleep.

When she woke up, it had about 30k retweets and 100k likes.

Our circle of friends was quick to be shocked. Nothing like this had ever happened to any of us before. All of us having grown up in the era of social media, we were amazed and confused that something like this was happening to one of us. May began to accrue more and more followers, and the interactions with the tweet did not slow down.

Then it left Twitter.

The original tweet.

May's tweet was posted to Reddit, where it became the subject of several threads. It began to be picked up by influencers. This was during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of us had begun a Dungeons & Dragons campaign which we played over Discord; while several members of our circle were gathered in a Discord call one night to play the game, May suddenly joined to tell us that popular and controversial Youtuber Pewdiepie had featured her tweet and discussed it in a video, albeit without credit. We wondered if, like the Oli London story, it would be picked up by news agencies (it was, though May was rarely or never credited). The story was already beginning to be twisted into stories that were blatantly false, from claiming May, as the original poster of the tweet, was the one in the photos, to making up an entirely false narrative about Misha which claimed that he was Brazilian and named Xianh Nishi. “A lie can go around the world before the truth gets its shoes on,” my dad said when I explained the concept of this post to him, quoting... Winston Churchill? Mark Twain? Jonathan Swift? Googling the original author of that quote provides no clear answer, and so it would seem that this method of widely sharing information with obscured, murky origins is as old as time itself.

Looking back on it now, it was, at first, fun for us, and especially for May. "I think everyone gets a little excited when anything of theirs gains traction," she observes. But the attention on the tweet, and on May, did not stop, and she began to feel uncomfortable with it. The false stories only contributed to this, and she was tired of it. May deleted the original tweet. Misha also contacted her about the tweet, and it was clear that he was uncomfortable with the attention; thousands of people immortalizing his embarrassment on the Internet had taught him his lesson. It has been over a year since the incident, though we all still remember it and tease May about her fifteen minutes of fame. After all, it is easily located on Google Images with the right search. But the tweet, like anything on the Internet, has a life of its own these days.

We find it in the strangest of places, and always when it's least expected. Sometimes, a screenshot resurfaces on Twitter. It appears every so often in a Youtube video. At least twice, it has found its way to Tiktok. This last sighting was the fuel behind the idea for this post. May was innocently scrolling through her For You Page when--in an interesting combination of platforms, so stay with me here--a Tiktok of a screenshot of a tweet of a quoted retweet of May's tweet appeared. She quickly screenshotted the Tiktok and posted it to her Twitter account, and I realized it would be the perfect subject for a writing assignment of mine. You cannot imagine my surprise when I then opened Tiktok and, two videos down from the first on my For You Page upon opening the app, this exact Tiktok featuring May's tweet was there, like a jump scare in a horror movie. Many comments on this Tiktok are questions; everyone seems to want to know the @, or username, of the person in the pictures, or the tweet's author given that, ever since May changed her username (the change being unconnected to the tweet), her account cannot be connected to it. Some comments observe that this particular tweet resurfaces several times a year--trust me, we know. Most of all, they want to know... Is this real?!

Some of the most prominent resurfacings of May’s tweet.

It would seem that both May and Misha got their wishes. Both have faded into Internet obscurity, their names unconnected to the infamous Tweet That Lived. Some commenters were able to identify the latter--and, I would argue, rightfully so, as he will need to live with this decision forever--due to yet another Twitter scandal centered around him, a more serious one involving his mistreatment of an ex, though he has since deleted all social media and been all but chased off the Internet. As for the former, she remains unidentifiable as the original poster. One or two of May's current Twitter followers replied to her tweet of the screenshot asking, as so many did when it was originally posted, if she is the one in the photos, to which she responds with a resounding and clear NO.  Another, a friend of hers, recalled in the replies a time when a coworker showed her the tweet completely unaware that she knew the poster. When asked why she believes it gained the levels of notoriety it has achieved, May tells me: "It was likely the shock and disbelief it made people feel, like it had people asking, 'Did somebody really do something like that?’ When people see things they deem as insane, they'll quickly want to share it with other people, whether or not they think it's funny, or want to make fun of the situation with others. And, of course, there was the inevitability of the pictures turning into memes outside of my actual tweet."

"I care much less now," she says of the made-up stories, the attention, and everything else. "But I still get shocked every time I see the tweet resurface again."

And thus did a simple joke shared amongst friends open Pandora's Box of Internet memes.