Social Media Digest: Inventions, Integrations and Public Humiliations

  • Social Media

Greetings fellow social wizards and welcome to this week’s round up of social media news. Although the sun’s not exactly shining anymore, the online world is never dull. Here are our top five favourite social media stories this week.

1. After discussing ‘jubilee sick bags’ with popstar Paloma Faith at the Diamond Jubilee, the BBC received 2,500 of public complaints about the ‘distasteful and dumbed down’ presenting style from Fearne Cotton. In response to a lot of online torment, she used Twitter to hit the online bullies back in the face with tweets like “Grown men who slag me off in articles/online are huge bullies. I love my job and wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t any good at it.”

After receiving much love from her fans and yet further abuse from critics, she replied directly to one user who wrote “@FearneCotton you were pretty rubbish on the Pageant day, love. And if you can’t see why, then maybe you should find a new career…” Fearne replied, “right this is what im talking about. YOU=bully. Take a look at yourself. I have been working nonstop for 15 years thank you”. Proof, if any were needed, that celebs DO read what people say to them.

 

2. It seems that even more is being done to bring down online bullying and giving power to victims, after websites may be forced to identify ‘trolls’ under a new law. It comes to light after a number of incidents with people such as Nicola Brookes, Rebecca Adlington and Stan Collymore. Apparently, investigators will be able to report, cross reference information and use IP addresses in order to identify these trolls and bring them into account. It could also be good news for hosting websites such as Facebook, who have recently been taken to court for inadvertently displaying offensive user content. After all it’s not really their fault! If they help to identify these trolls then they could be spared the time and cost of being taken to court.

 

3. On a less serious note, it seems that Channel 4 have been a bit clever and taken a leaf out of Pinterest’s book (or rather pin out of their board!). They have designed their own pinboard-type website, called the Scrap Book where users can browse experts and TV shows – they can cut out, collect and keep the best recipes, stockists and expert advice on the website. It’s a great idea for people who like recipes from Channel 4 personalities such as Jamie Oliver and Kevin McLeod and want to keep it all in one place. It is literally like cutting out magazine recipes and gluing them all in one book – sounds fun. Although it’s not fully launched off the ground through social media and press, I think the website has some potential!

 

4. A campaign created by VisitSweden designed to promote tourism for the country has caused controversy and some fury after Sonja Abrahamsson has been controlling its Twitter account posting messages about Jews, Nazis, porn and AIDs. The @sweden account was created to boost interest to the country through showcasing the variety of its people. The public relations company, VisitSweden refuse to take the Twitter page down and state that it shows Sweden in a genuine way – although this instance may prove negative. But hey, any PR is good PR, right!?

 

5. Finally, this week also sees the launch of the Facebook and WordPress integration tool. On Tuesday morning, Facebook announced the integrations that can allow you to add your blog content to Facebook in one click. You can go to the Facebook for WordPress plugin and cross-publish content to WordPress, your Facebook Timeline and Facebook pages you may administrate… quite cool! It’s all part of Facebook’s plan to be the web for its users, increasing its gateway to the wider web and non-user content.