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Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Social Media Digest: KitchenAid Disaster, Gaga’s Monsters and Facebook Free Forever?

Friday, October 5th, 2012

1. Following Facebook’s one-billion active monthly users milestone, a survey by Betapond has revealed that while 34% of people believe that Facebook will be ‘everywhere’ in ten years’ time, 7% still think that it’ll be ‘dead and buried’. Surprisingly, 16% of people think that Facebook will be overtaken by rivals and a whopping 66% now think that Facebook is more important to your job role than not. It seems that most have faith in Facebook’s staying power, but I wonder what the ‘rivals’ are that some think could overtake the social giant – Twitter? Surely not G+?

2. Poor @KitchenAidUSA. Like the American Red Cross and Chrysler before it, Kitchen Aid has fallen foul of the ‘accidental personal tweet’ – this time at the President of the USA’s expense! During the presidential debate on Wednesday evening, a tweet was sent from KitchenAidUSA’s account expressing a less-than-polite view about Obama’s politics and personal life…

Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics

The tweet, sent to Kitchen Aid’s 24,000 followers, was quickly deleted and an apology was quickly issued. Kitchen Aid reached out to Mashable to explain: “During the debate tonight, a member of our Twitter team mistakenly posted an offensive tweet from the KitchenAid handle instead of a personal handle. The tasteless joke in no way represents our values at KitchenAid, and that person won’t be tweeting for us anymore. That said, I lead the KitchenAid brand, and I take responsibility for the whole team. I am deeply sorry to President Obama, his family, and the Twitter community for this careless error. Thanks for hearing me out”. Most of us know how easily it’s done – should the offending tweeter be let off?

3. Facebook is now allowing personal users to promote their posts – similar to Pages’ Promoted Posts – for a fee of $7. The promoted stories have been made available in the USA for the first time following testing in a few counties, and will increase the chances of your friends seeing your most important posts. Following Facebook’s response to a popular rumour last year – “A rumor on the Internet caught our attention. We have no plans to charge for Facebook. It’s free and always will be” – the promoted posts feature seems a bit odd to us. We’re wondering what next steps it might take to monetise the site?

4. Lady Gaga is the first to hit the Twitter big-time – she’s just reached 30 million followers! Beating out the likes of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga has gained 10 million followers since hitting 20 million in March. While some of the accounts are likely to be fake, unused or spam, it’s still an incredible milestone for one person to reach. Part of Lady Gaga’s increase in social popularity may be to do with her recent campaign on her LittleMonsters.com blog – Body Revolution. Following the media’s ridiculous outcry over Gaga’s slight weight gain, she took to her site to encourage her fans to love their bodies as they are. An unusually great role model – meat dress or no meat dress!

5. The last piece of news in this week’s SMD is slightly bittersweet – today we say farewell to our Senior Account Manager, Louise! Louise is moving on to pastures green in Manchester. She’s much-loved and will be much missed, but we wish Louise all the best in her new role.

Tags: Betapond, Facebook, Kitchen Aid USA, Lady Gaga, Obama, Twitter
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Social Media Digest: Obama’s Reddit AMA, Twitter Controversy and Facebook’s Facelift

Friday, August 31st, 2012

1. Twitter has been up in arms over controversial tweets again, this time thanks to MP George Galloway. Following his recent disastrous comments on rape, Galloway has stuck his foot in his mouth once again, tweeting ‘you badly need medical help son. Will decent Rangers fans please substitute this windae-licker’ during a conversation on Sunday. Twitter users were quick to point out the disrespectful slur, and disability charity Mencap has called for an apology from the MP.

2. A Canadian car dealership is giving customers the chance to tweet their way to a brand new Audi in a ‘Tweet Race’. Starting from

Monday, entrants can sign up for a new Twitter account or sign in with an existing one – the first ten accounts to reach 2,500 followers will each receive a key, and one key will open a new Audi A4. Pfaff Automotive, the dealership running the competition, will be tracking the tweet race on their website.

3. Facebook has (finally!) released an update of its iOS app which, according to most accounts, is two times faster than the previous version. The new app, built on Objective-C instead of HTML5, features a ‘New Stories’ dropdown when new items are posted allowing users to quickly jump to the top of the page plus updated Messages and Photos functionality. We’ve noticed that it’s a lot faster and definitely more slick – what do you think?

4. Inspired by seeing the same cliché wedding photos on Facebook over and over, photographer Beatrice de Guigne has re-enacted the images with the most famous couple in the world – Barbie and Ken. If you’re on Facebook, Twitter and especially Pinterest, you’ll have seen these shots time and time again, but hopefully most bride and grooms are more animated than these two!

5. If we didn’t know already, we do now: President Obama rules the internet. The US President took part in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) this week and fielded dozens of questions and posted photographs on the site. Obama is the first political figure to engage audiences in such a way and although the AMA was unscheduled and unannounced, more than 1.8 million people subscribed to the thread. Way to go, Obama!

Tags: Audi, Barbi, Facebook, Galloway, Obama, Reddit, Tweet Race, Twitter
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Social Media Digest: Social Poo, Facebook Enemies & Blackberry Sale

Friday, March 30th, 2012

What’s been happening in the world of social media over the past week, we hear you ask? Well, quite a lot (in short) and here are some of the top stories that we’ve cherry-picked for you in our latest Social Media Digest. Enjoy!

1. Whilst we’d never describe social media as a load of crap (for more reasons than we’d care to mention), some might dare to do so. In an interesting development you can now get your tweets printed on to a toilet roll. The new service is offered by an app called S***ter, whose slogan is: ‘Social media has never been so disposable.’ It explains: ‘S***ter will take one or more feeds from your Twitter account and turn it into four rolls of toilet paper, direct to your door.’ The app will print collected tweets from your choice of Twitter account, or your own newsfeed.

2. A new Facebook application allows users to add friends or pages to a list of enemies, but its creator believes the social network will soon shut it down. EnemyGraph, created by Professor Dean Terry from the Univeristy of Texas, focuses on the people, brands and things users don’t like, rather than the traditional ‘like’ model Facebook was built on.

3. A student sent to jail for posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba may be freed on Friday if he wins an appeal. Swansea University student Liam Stacey, 21, from Pontypridd, was sentenced to 56 days behind bars on Tuesday. A High Court judge in Swansea will hear the appeal against his sentence. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred over remarks about the Bolton Wanderers player, who collapsed during a FA Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur.

4. Barack Obama has joined Pinterest and shared his favourite chili recipe. The dish appears on his latest social networking sign-up, Pinterest – an online scrapbook and image-sharing site that is fast becoming the hottest place to be ‘seen’ for the online community. On the page, which already has nearly 9,000 followers, pictures of Obama-themed cupcakes, Bo the Obamas’ dog and voter-friendly infographic fact sheets have been posted by the President’s campaign team.

5. The new chief executive of Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry smartphones, signalled that he would be open to selling the company after it posted another catastrophic set of sales figures and plunged into the red. Revenues over the past three months, including the Christmas period when rival Apple sold millions of iPhones and iPads, were down 25 per cent, RIM said last night. The company – a pioneer in smartphones, particularly for business executives – announced a boardroom clear-out and a top-to-bottom review of its strategy, in an attempt to revive its fortunes.

Tags: blackberry, Facebook, Obama, Pinterest, RIM, Twitter
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Social Media Digest: Wendi’s Real, Abbott’s Racist and Worm’s Ramnit

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Welcome back to our social media digest, the run-down of what’s hot in the world of social media. In the first week of the New Year, here’s what’s making the headlines:

1. Charities have warned of the rising number of adopted children contacted by their birth parents via Facebook, leading to emotional and psychological distress. The popularity of social networking websites has seen an increase in breaches of guidelines against unplanned contact with hundreds of adopted children unexpectedly hearing from their natural families. In the worst cases, some young people taken into care in the 1990s have seen relationships with their adoptive families completely break down after hearing from their biological parents.

2.Instagram came of age this week with the world’s most powerful man, Mr President, launching his profile on the image-sharing platform (above). Whilst it’s unlikely the photos will shed light on covert behind-the-scenes meetings at the White House, Instagram will be rubbing their hands with glee as the platform gains its most influential endorser. Maybe 2012 will be the year when the app is made available to Android users. Only time will tell!

3. Labour MP Diane Abbott was in hot water over remarks she made following the Stephen Lawrence murder trial. The Shadow Health Minister has since apologised for any offence caused by comments she made on Twitter, after claims they were racist. She said she had not meant to generalise when she wrote: ”White people love playing ‘divide & rule’”. It was a response to criticism of media use of “black community leaders” after the Stephen Lawrence murder trial. Whether or not she’s in position this time next week remains to be seen.

4. Will the real Wendi Deng please stand up? Despite an official verified “tick” badge from the social networking service – now rescinded – a News International spokeswoman in London confirmed on Tuesday that the @Wendi_Deng Twitter account was fake, although the @rupertmurdoch account is genuine. Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, joined Twitter on 31 December, with the fake Deng account launching the following day. She apparently chatted with celebrities including Gervais, tweeting “i think you look HOT ricky!!! (sssh dont tell @rupertmurdoch!)”, and Kim Kardashian (“kim!!! agreed! rupert and i set a lot of goals for ourselves all through last yr!”), but the account holder’s cover was blown on Tuesday when Twitter said it was not authentic.

5. A nasty bit of malware making the rounds on Facebook has reportedly made off with the usernames and passwords of more than 45,000 users. Most of those affected by the worm–called Ramnit–are from France and the United Kingdom, according to a bulletin issued by security researchers at Securlet. It is capable of infecting Windows executables, Microsoft Office, and HTML files, according to McAfee.

6. And finally…another gong for Umpf. We have been voted the Best Social Media Agency in Yorkshire by The Drum magazine. Its annual New Year’s Honours list ranks agencies which have ‘consistently produced top notch creative work and whose trophy cabinets are fit to burst’. A great way to start the year!

Tags: Diane Abbott, Facebook, Instagram, Obama, Twitter, Wedi Deng
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