Author: Michael Summergrad

Ad Blocking

My final report is on the rise of Ad Blocking over the past few years and the potential ways for advertising firms to combat this.  In a world where social media revenue is greatly generated from ad dollars, the evolution of how we work with or fight against the technology will help to shape the […]

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Twitter Benchmark

I was unable to truly expand my Twitter following during this course.  At the beginning of the semester I had 138 followers, and now I only have 156, a number that could be attributed to friends and classmates who began to follow my feed.  To be completely truthful, none of my efforts on Twitter yielded […]

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Top Ten Tweets

#10.

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This Tweet was successful since it catered to both my family and friends as well as Syracuse locals.  The likes on the post are from Jon Kane and my sister, so the reach of engagement is possibly not huge.

#9.

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This Tweet is very specifically targeted both at one of my favorite news sources for live music, as well as certain followers I have or are within the same communities of live music.  In the summer of 2013, I interned for Live for Live Music, a notorious blog for their click-bait headlines and thus lead to the idea for the Tweet.  It is interesting to see that rather than like the post or share it people actually went to my profile to check it out.

#8.

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While this Tweet really did not serve a particular purpose, it still had engagement from people who saw it.  This Tweet is very simple to explain, it was my 1,999 Tweet.  This style of Tweet is the type of Tweet I would always make before taking this class.  It is these types of Tweets that I feel while although engaged the viewer actually hurt my social media rather than help.

#7.

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On this day, we had to find trending topics to Tweet about, and I saw the national stress day Tweet trending throughout the US so I decided to try it out.  I think it was perfect timing since around the time of this Tweet we had a day of usually nice weather and sunshine, things that are rare in Syracuse.  I think that the combination of this being a national trend on top of a relatable topic for SU students helped the engagement with this Tweet.

#6.

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This is the first Tweet on the list that where I actually shared some information outside of my own opinion.  This was at the beginning of the class so my quote Tweet selection did not stray far from my heart.  This Tweet’s engagement benefitted from Prof. Grygiel inquiring to find out more about what the deal was with this group.

#5.

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This is one of my favorites from the semester.  I saw the movie Spotlight twice over Thanksgiving break, and it is essential viewing material for anybody, but especially every single person in this class.  The movie is entirely about breaking a national story just on the cusp of the Internet era and it shows the end of different time in Journalism.  This Tweet was very well timed since the movie was just releasesd, and by using the movie hashtag, I was able to get a like from the Spotlight Twitter page.  It also helped that the class really engaged on this Tweet by liking it, replying and retweeting it.

#4.

This Tweet was also a lot of fun.  If I have more things to say, I am definitely going to continue to use this hashtag as a way to distinguish myself.  Considering this assignment was focused on the hashtag, the fact that four people clicked it shows that it was interesting enough to draw some attention to it.  It also helped that Jon and Steve were in on the joke so that made them more interested on top of me tagging them within the post.

#3.

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I would like to preface this by saying I like to watch a lot of really bad sitcom TV.  Now that is out of the way, Undateable is an NBC show that took the leap into live broadcasting East and West Coast feeds for the entire 3rd season.  It is amazing to see how they are engaging the audience as well as breaking the fourth wall every chance they get.  I think this Tweet had a high level of engagement since I attached an article to the Tweet as well as using the hashtag of the show.

#2.

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This is the only Tweet I made this semester using photos, and I really do not have a good explanation for that.  Clearly, using a photo is an amazing way to get engagement, especially since the majority of it on the picture is people actually looking at the photos themselves.  If my band was not ending this semester, I would definitely start a band Twitter and blast it with only professional quality photos, since I think this would lead to greater engagement.

and the Top Tweet for the Fall of 2015 is……………

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As I was on my way to Thanksgiving break and the Billboard conference, I like to let people know and thought maybe somebody else at the conference might see.  Not only until the day later did I found out the hashtag for the event was #TouringConf.  What is really cool about this tweet is that people were aware of the event in the area, so Virgil’s BBQ, right around the corner from the venue, liked my Tweet and I imagine every Tweet mentioning Billboard.  That strategy of finding out what events are in your area and then using that to target people related to it.

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The Many Faces of #BlackFriday

Now more than ever, as soon as we take the last bite of that pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table, the Christmas season is upon us and that means one thing, shopping.  The phenomena of Black Friday has truly gotten to a whole new level, especially with the introduction of Cyber Monday. #BlackFriday is finally […]

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#FeeltheBern vs. #Jebcanfixit

Senator Bernie Sanders over the course of this year has managed to take himself from unknown Senator from Vermont to a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.   Jeb Bush is quite the opposite, the former Governor of Florida, who was considered a front-runner when he announced his campaign, is now all but down and out. […]

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Journal Article Discussion: Social Factors in User Perceptions and Responses to Advertising in Online Social Networking Communities

In our journal article, a study was performed to help determine the social factors that help inform responses to advertisements on social media.  In today’s society, a majority of the information we receive comes from social media outlets, and these sites have to tiptoe the line between having advertisements as well as providing an uninterrupted experience […]

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