In response to Rota Jaunzemis

Both Snapchat and Instagram have upgraded the average selfie. Now users can transform into a myriad of animals, characters, and even other people using these smart filters. The most popular example of a filter would be Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo filter that transformed users into actual tacos.

Would this possibility of disguising yourself as an animal favor fake news?

In response to Zachary MacConnell

Facebook is commonly blamed as the primary culprit for declining organic reach, but the truth is each of the primary social networks have moved to an algorithmic feed in an attempt to serve up the most relevant content to each individual user.

Rumors are that Snapchat will soon follow suit in their Stories and Discovery sections. Now that total followers is a vanity metric and not an indication of views or engagement, what options are left to ensure content reaches the masses?

Facebook is commonly blamed as the primary culprit for declining organic reach, but the truth is each of the primary social networks have moved to an algorithmic feed in an attempt to serve up the most relevant content to each individual user.

In response to Mihail Antoniou

Customizing content doesn’t just mean choosing how long a picture is able to be viewed or writing a caption to accompany the picture. Snapchat and Instagram have taken storytelling to the next level by encouraging users to draw, write, sticker, and filter their pictures to add a personal touch and have fun doing it! The newest Snapchat and Instagram features enable users to interact with the content they view and share.

Both Snapchat and Instagram have upgraded the average selfie. Now users can transform into a myriad of animals, characters, and even other people using these smart filters. The most popular example of a filter would be Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo filter that transformed users into actual tacos.

Customizing content doesn’t just mean choosing how long a picture is able to be viewed or writing a caption to accompany the picture. Snapchat and Instagram have taken storytelling to the next level by encouraging users to draw, write, sticker, and filter their pictures to add a personal touch and have fun doing it! The newest Snapchat and Instagram features enable users to interact with the content they view and share.

In response to Damir Lukacin

 A great example of a brand that succeeds on social media is diaper brand Pampers. Realizing the potential to create a brand community, it uses its social media channels as a place for parents to converse with each other, as well as interact with the brand. By creating hashtags to spark conversation and using original abbreviations like ‘LO’ (little one), it has managed to create its own unique style and tone – and one that resonates with its target audience.

It is interesting you mentioned tone of voice.  The way you want your brand to be perceived should ultimately define the way you choose to communicate.  Take Innocent as an example. Its tone of voice is very playful and humorous, and this tone is present in absolutely everything it publishes, from its website copy to its content marketing to its tweets, and even the product information on its bottles.

In response to Magda Ivone Nussbaum

The temptation to use social media solely as a broadcasting platform is undeniable. While promoting products or campaigns is an integral part of a brand’s strategy, ensuring content is both relevant and valuable is vital. Instead of basic self-promotion, the challenge for companies is to find ways to create content that reflects its brand values and personality, as well as encourages conversation.

 A great example of a brand that succeeds on social media is diaper brand Pampers. Realizing the potential to create a brand community, it uses its social media channels as a place for parents to converse with each other, as well as interact with the brand. By creating hashtags to spark conversation and using original abbreviations like ‘LO’ (little one), it has managed to create its own unique style and tone – and one that resonates with its target audience.

The temptation to use social media solely as a broadcasting platform is undeniable. While promoting products or campaigns is an integral part of a brand’s strategy, ensuring content is both relevant and valuable is vital. Instead of basic self-promotion, the challenge for companies is to find ways to create content that reflects its brand values and personality, as well as encourages conversation.

With Pinterest’s visual discovery tools (including the new Lens Your Look), users can take photos of objects they like and Pinterest will match it to photos on the platform. For example, if someone takes a picture of a chair they love—and your business sells a similar chair that’s featured on Pinterest—then there’s a good chance that your photo will pop up for them to see. Right now the Lens is best used for home decor, food, and clothing, but Pinterest plans to roll out the feature more broadly in the future.

In response to Finnbar Carroll

GDPR is a step to a better online future for sure, but I don't believe you can have privacy on the internet, they whole idea of social media is to share your privacy with others. Maybe people like to expose their privacy and this is what makes them happy.

Yes, some people like to expose their privacy. I ensure you that most of them want to expose a small part of their lifes and when something that is not supposed to be on the internet comes up they are doing their best to wipe it off.

For example, take a look at the movie stars. Their profession essentially is being on the TV, giving interviews, etc. but most of them want to life a normal life outside of the projectors in their free time. Unfortunately most of the time they don't seem to achieve it, bacause if media is not in the way, social media takes it's place.

Snapchat’s Lens Studio enables any user or business to create their own augmented reality (AR) lenses. The desktop app offers instructions for beginners to start with basic 2D animation, while more advanced creators can actually access the API and create complex lenses from scratch. Once you’ve created your lens, you’ll receive a unique Snapcode to share from anywhere, and anyone can unlock your lens. If you have an in-house creative team that can help build and create lenses for campaigns, this is a great opportunity to try something a little different on Snapchat and engage users.

Instagram has introduced a paid partnership tagging feature so that influencers and brands can be more transparent about disclosing which of their posts are sponsored. When an influencer tags a business in their post with the paid partnership feature, that business will then have access to performance data for that post, including metrics such as reach and replies.

If you run influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram, you’ll want to use this feature.

Facebook’s Stories—which allow you to post content that disappears after 24 hours—is now available for groups and events. People can post Stories that are visible only to their groups or on any event page. These Stories will have a private hashtag and will be moderated by admins to make sure that content is appropriate and on-brand.

As people spend most of their productive and working times interacting on the social media, it obviously hampers the productivity of individuals. People get distracted a lot due to these social media sites. It has been reported by Nucleus Research that Facebook adds to 1.5% of the total off office productivity world-over.

At first glance, the field of new media may seem hip, cool, creative and relaxed. What many don't realize is that working in this field is tiresome. Many of the people that work in this field don't have steady jobs. Work in this field has become project-based. Individuals work project to project for different companies. Most people are not working on one project or contract, but multiple ones at the same time.

New media is characterized by its digital-first nature and its low physical costs of production and distribution. New media formats include:

• Mobile apps
• Video
• Blogs
• eBooks
• Email
• Podcasts

Social media from 2003-2013 was a subset of new media, a digital-first way to reach people. As times have changed, social media became more a form of broadcast, and then paid broadcast. Today, with algorithms and advertising dominating the ways to reach consumers on social media, it’s a different animal.

In response to Arabinda Scott

The Internet has turned our existence upside down. It has revolutionized communications, to the extent that it is now our preferred medium of everyday communication. In almost everything we do, we use the Internet.

The Internet has changed business, education, government, healthcare, and even the ways in which we interact with our loved ones—it has become one of the key drivers of social evolution.

The Internet has turned our existence upside down. It has revolutionized communications, to the extent that it is now our preferred medium of everyday communication. In almost everything we do, we use the Internet.

Mobile social media applications provide companies data about offline consumer movements at a level of detail that was previously accessible to online companies only. These applications allow any business to know the exact time a customer who uses social media entered one of its locations, as well as know the social media comments made during the visit.

In response to Electra Pompeo Ionesco

What does viral content refer to?  What does it mean for something to spread virally over social networks?  

The term is an analogy to the concept of viral infections, which can spread rapidly from person to person. In a social media context, content or websites that are "viral" (or which "go viral") are those with a greater likelihood that users will reshare content posted (by another user) to their social network, leading to further sharing.

What does viral content refer to?  What does it mean for something to spread virally over social networks?  

Here is a quick rundown of when the different social media came into existence. GeoCities was one of the Internet's earliest social networking websites, appearing in November 1994, followed by Classmates in December 1995, Six Degrees in May 1997, Open Diary in October 1998, LiveJournal in April 1999, Ryze in October 2001, Friendster in March 2002, LinkedIn in May 2003, hi5 in June 2003, MySpace in August 2003, Orkut in January 2004, Facebook in February 2004, Yahoo! 360° in March 2005, Bebo in July 2005, Twitter in July 2006, Tumblr in February 2007, and Google+ in July 2011.

In response to Finnbar Carroll

GDPR is a step to a better online future for sure, but I don't believe you can have privacy on the internet, they whole idea of social media is to share your privacy with others. Maybe people like to expose their privacy and this is what makes them happy.

Yes, but the problem we are facing right now is the fact that we don't get a shot at protecting your privacy on the internet, this is where GDPR steps in.

In response to Borislav Bossakov

There were a few posts on what not to use social media for.  I would like to list a few ways of using social media in a positive way:

1. Turn your passion into a business
2. Take control of your publishing
3. Take control of your marketing
4. Make a difference
5. Leave a legacy
6. Build an online asset that will show up in Google search results for years
7. Build a business online
8. Create independence
9. Meet cool and influential people both virtual and face to face
10. Grow your own network of influence
11. Open up business opportunities
12. Accelerate the rate of growth both personal and business

• Grow
• Gain energy
• Learn more about yourself through self expression
• Make your mum proud
• Make your friends jealous
• Put a smile on your face
• Discover skills you didn’t know you had
• Find purpose in your life

There were a few posts on what not to use social media for.  I would like to list a few ways of using social media in a positive way:

1. Turn your passion into a business
2. Take control of your publishing
3. Take control of your marketing
4. Make a difference
5. Leave a legacy
6. Build an online asset that will show up in Google search results for years
7. Build a business online
8. Create independence
9. Meet cool and influential people both virtual and face to face
10. Grow your own network of influence
11. Open up business opportunities
12. Accelerate the rate of growth both personal and business

GDPR is a step to a better online future for sure, but I don't believe you can have privacy on the internet, they whole idea of social media is to share your privacy with others. Maybe people like to expose their privacy and this is what makes them happy.

You should never use social media as a tool for revenge. The social media is pretty one sided and will take up your side at first. However, you are committing the greatest sin by doing so. You are hurting someone else with the help of social media.

In response to future hacker

Here are a few I could think of, to get the discussion started:

1. Complaining about a specific person
2. Posting a picture without permission
3. Tagging someone in an embarrassing photo
4. Writing a negative post about a non-public figure
5. Repeatedly sending a Direct Message
6. Doctoring a photo
7. Racial slurs
8. Death threats
9. Changing the meaning of a tweet when you retweet it
10. Posting a private comment made in person

1. Changing the meaning of a tweet when you retweet it
2. Representing an original photo as your own
3. Swearing
4. Harassment
5. Hiring or firing an employee
6. Apologizing to a specific person
7. Reward one employee and not the others
8. Arguing

In response to future hacker

What is it about social media that brings out the worst in people? That crude joke about your accounting supervisor or the doctored picture of the CEO at a party? They might seem funny at the time, but it's easy to forget how social media posts can live in infamy forever and become part of an eternal archive.

Can you all think of a few things one should never do on a social media website?

Here are a few I could think of, to get the discussion started:

1. Complaining about a specific person
2. Posting a picture without permission
3. Tagging someone in an embarrassing photo
4. Writing a negative post about a non-public figure
5. Repeatedly sending a Direct Message
6. Doctoring a photo
7. Racial slurs
8. Death threats
9. Changing the meaning of a tweet when you retweet it
10. Posting a private comment made in person

What is it about social media that brings out the worst in people? That crude joke about your accounting supervisor or the doctored picture of the CEO at a party? They might seem funny at the time, but it's easy to forget how social media posts can live in infamy forever and become part of an eternal archive.

Can you all think of a few things one should never do on a social media website?

Social media has created a way for people to constantly update and share content with their friends with little effort. Whether it is posted forever on a timeline or a couple seconds in a Snap, a picture is worth a thousand words and social media has created the perfect medium to share these visual stories with friends.

In response to Olena Matey

The consequences of GDPR are yet to be seen.  I am particularly interested in seeing what they will be for digital advertising.

Olena,

GDPR will prompt data-driven advertising to be more opt-in and permission-based, and will render widespread tactics like retargeting and remarketing less invasive and obtrusive. These changes will usher in the next era of digital advertising: people-based marketing, or that which utilizes first-party data instead of third-party data/ad-serving.

In response to Wioleta Brzezinski

The use of social media and tools in political campaigns in the US and Europe is an interesting topic.  I am planning on writing a paper on it at school.

Wioleta,

Political parties across the globe are learning that along with advertising on traditional mediums such as television and newspapers, they must invest in digital marketing if they want to compete with their rival parties. Over the past few years, we’ve seen an uptake in UK and US parties, in particular, using social media campaigns to defeat their opponents.

The GDPR requires technology companies to have the active consent of customers before they collect and store personal data. These rules apply to any company doing business in the E.U. including U.S. information technology firms. They also apply to European data that is taken outside of Europe:  data collected in Germany but then fed to a machine learning algorithm in the United States will still be governed by the GDPR. This is radically different from the U.S. system where firms abide by rules that they can mostly write themselves.

Fabricio, I thought GDPR was adopted this year to protect the personal data of EU citizens.  How can it possibly influence a political campaign in the US?  Is it because it talks about online data?

The way they compare and contrast the influence of GDPR on political campaigns in Europe and the USA in the video was very interesting and informative.

The use of social media and tools in political campaigns in the US and Europe is an interesting topic.  I am planning on writing a paper on it at school.

The detailed discussion of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica affair was well done and very pertinent to the topic.  This scandal was indeed a wakeup call to us all.

Now I am much more aware when I post something on the net.

The consequences of GDPR are yet to be seen.  I am particularly interested in seeing what they will be for digital advertising.