Hopefully by now you've heard of Periscope. You know, the app where you can live-stream from anywhere, anytime, literally to anyone who wants to watch.
For those who don't know, Periscope was named the "iPhone App of the Year" in 2015 by Apple. It was created by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein who saw the need for a live-streaming app while traveling in Istanbul in 2013. A protest broke out, and Beykpour wanted to see what was happening so he turned to Twitter...but he could only READ about it there. He wanted to SEE it.
Fast forward a few years and Twitter bought-out their app with a relaunch in March 2015. After just four months, Periscope had passed 10 million accounts with around "40 years per day" of video being streamed.
Around the same time Periscope came out, so did a similar rival: Meerkat. This was also a live-streaming app that had its "15 seconds of fame" at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in March 2015. Users here had the option to connect their Twitter and Facebook accounts to stream to their followers and friends, but after Twitter purchased Periscope, well, things changed for Meerkat.
Twitter focused a majority of their attention of pushing Periscope to its followers and limited Meerkat's access to it's social graph, no longer allowing users to connect Meerkat to Twitter. Meerkat beat Periscope by becoming an Android app first, but once Facebook Live was launched, Meerkat's chances of growth became slim to none.
On October 4, 2016, Meerkat was shut down.
But wait...you don't want to miss this part.
The company who owned Meerkat has been in the process of developing a new app called Houseparty. With this, users can create or join video chat rooms of up to eight people. Participants can also switch between "rooms" (name of the chats) with just a swipe of the finger. Remember the days when you wanted to talk to all your friends at once but didn't want to pay Skype (video chat) to do it? Well now there is a specific app for iOS and Andoid in the works that could change the game in just my own life.
As a young PR professional, how this app can benefit my life ranges from having conversations with my team out of my university's student-run firm, Inspired Strategies Agency, to just being able to chat with my friends all over the United States.
Keep your eyes out for Houseparty friends...and if you haven't checked out Periscope, get a feel for what live-streaming is all about.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Sunday, October 9, 2016
The Internet is Unforgiving
Take a second and think about the title of this blog. Can you remember something you may have posted when you first created a Facebook account (hello "OMG sooooooo excited to go to the movies xoxoxo <333" from 2009)? What about that crazy embarrassing photo of you your mom posted of you friends seem to find five years later?
Let's get more serious...think about all the stories of celebrity nudes or sex tapes getting released because they were somehow hacked or sent over Snapchat. There have been companies where employees accidentally tweeted inappropriate things on their accounts, quotes from politicians being brought up during this debate from months ago, and company reputations with PR campaigns going down the drain from public criticism. Truly, the Internet is unforgiving.
We recently had guest speaker Debra Bethard-Caplick speak to our social media strategies class at my university, and this is one of the main points that stuck with me. We are all too lenient these days with what we post on social media, especially my generation (Gen Z), and we continually see others face the consequences (yet think we're still untouchable ourselves).
Another key point she made related to this idea was: ”Somebody has to be the adult in the room and unfortunately too many people on social media are not."
Wow. Let that one sink in and just TRY to tell me it's not 100 percent accurate.
Even if you are not attempting to be "professional" on social media, it is ESSENTIAL to remember it is not made to be a platform of vulgarity, arguments, or post every area of your life for the entire world to have access to. Just because you may think marijuana should be legalized doesn't mean it's appropriate to post a picture of yourself smoking online.
Let me leave you with three things (LOOK HERE BEFORE YOU LEAVE) if you have zoned out for most of this blog:
Let's get more serious...think about all the stories of celebrity nudes or sex tapes getting released because they were somehow hacked or sent over Snapchat. There have been companies where employees accidentally tweeted inappropriate things on their accounts, quotes from politicians being brought up during this debate from months ago, and company reputations with PR campaigns going down the drain from public criticism. Truly, the Internet is unforgiving.
We recently had guest speaker Debra Bethard-Caplick speak to our social media strategies class at my university, and this is one of the main points that stuck with me. We are all too lenient these days with what we post on social media, especially my generation (Gen Z), and we continually see others face the consequences (yet think we're still untouchable ourselves).
Another key point she made related to this idea was: ”Somebody has to be the adult in the room and unfortunately too many people on social media are not."
Wow. Let that one sink in and just TRY to tell me it's not 100 percent accurate.
Even if you are not attempting to be "professional" on social media, it is ESSENTIAL to remember it is not made to be a platform of vulgarity, arguments, or post every area of your life for the entire world to have access to. Just because you may think marijuana should be legalized doesn't mean it's appropriate to post a picture of yourself smoking online.
Let me leave you with three things (LOOK HERE BEFORE YOU LEAVE) if you have zoned out for most of this blog:
- The benefit and PROBLEM with social media is that it's instantaneous
- Somebody has to be the adult in the room and unfortunately too many people on social media are not
- THE INTERNET IS UNFORGIVING
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Trump vs. Clinton Debate 2016-Round 1
*Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to round one of the 2016 presidential debates! In this corner we have Republican candidate Donald Trump...and in this corner we have Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton! Let the battle begin!*
If you needed a metaphor comparing how the first presidential debate went last Tuesday, look no further. But this post isn't about politics or picking a side, this post is about the public relations aspect to this debate. Specifically let's discuss Twitter and how Trump and Clinton's teams handled their social media account.
Again, taking the politics out of this blog post, Clinton's team was more impressive on Twitter during the campaign while Trump was mentioned more on social media throughout the debate.
One significant thing I learned about political PR teams during this debate was that they have multiple tweets set up and prepared throughout the night with cues to send them when key topics are brought up/phrases said. I'm sure I "knew" the candidates in debates have specific content prepped out to discuss, but actually seeing that happen live on screen then a tweet going out a second later relating perfectly made my lightbulb go off.
One of the best tweets of the night was when Clinton's team pulled up something Trump said regarding China and then his team preceded to delete the tweet. There were multiple jokes about how Clinton's team had fact checkers while Trump's had tweet deleters.
I was left with truly one question after the debate: why wasn't Hillary Clinton wearing a flag pin but Trump was?
From a PR standpoint, will there or have there been repercussions from this small incident?
If you needed a metaphor comparing how the first presidential debate went last Tuesday, look no further. But this post isn't about politics or picking a side, this post is about the public relations aspect to this debate. Specifically let's discuss Twitter and how Trump and Clinton's teams handled their social media account.
Again, taking the politics out of this blog post, Clinton's team was more impressive on Twitter during the campaign while Trump was mentioned more on social media throughout the debate.
One significant thing I learned about political PR teams during this debate was that they have multiple tweets set up and prepared throughout the night with cues to send them when key topics are brought up/phrases said. I'm sure I "knew" the candidates in debates have specific content prepped out to discuss, but actually seeing that happen live on screen then a tweet going out a second later relating perfectly made my lightbulb go off.
One of the best tweets of the night was when Clinton's team pulled up something Trump said regarding China and then his team preceded to delete the tweet. There were multiple jokes about how Clinton's team had fact checkers while Trump's had tweet deleters.
I was left with truly one question after the debate: why wasn't Hillary Clinton wearing a flag pin but Trump was?
From a PR standpoint, will there or have there been repercussions from this small incident?
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