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How Social Media Has Become the Battlefield for Recognizing #LymeDisease

More than 300,000 cases of Lyme disease will be diagnosed this year, but because many doctors aren’t well educated in recognizing it in its early stages, the number could be much higher. Luckily, awareness is spreading, thanks highly to social media. Here are some examples of what Twitter has to say about #LymeDisease.

We actually had a vaccine on the market for a few years, but its creators stopped making it because so few people requested it and it wasn’t making them enough money. Hopefully, with cases and awareness and demand on the rise, it will be improved and offered once again.

Many people don’t believe in climate change, but whatever your beliefs, the warmer and shorter the winters, the more ticks thrive. Ticks are notoriously stealthy, and it takes harsh conditions to kill them off. Additionally, they aren’t only spread by deer as many people believe, but are also carried by mice. The more mice survive the winter, they more ticks have warm bodies to stay attached to and feed on.

There’s much controversy over Lyme disease. The CDC says it’s treatable, but if it isn’t caught immediately, it can lead to permanent damage to the brain, heart, nervous system and more.

The “Spoon Theory” is a way of explaining to those without a chronic condition how much energy it takes to get through each day. It suggests that each person is given X amount of spoons each day, to spend however they choose. The amount of spoons you start with is determined by your health status. Certain activities cost more spoons than others, so essentially, it’s about knowing one’s limits and not wasting your energy on trivial or non-vital things.

Many celebrities, like Bella Hadid and Avril Lavigne have been spreading awareness of Lyme disease by being open about their battles with Lyme disease. In her recently released book, Kelly Osbourne slams such celebrities for trying to make the disease “trendy.”

Kelly Osbourne’s views are not shared or appreciated by many who have Lyme disease because they believe that celebrities sharing their battles are both inspirational and are using their platforms to raise awareness.

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Viral Content Challenge Analysis: 16 Moments That Will Satisfy Every Perfectionist

Background:

As a perfectionist myself, I have recognized my propensity to find gratification in serendipitously perfect situations and frustration with things that just not quite good enough. This campaign is a collection of photos and videos that speak to those satisfyingly perfect situations

 

 

Objective:

This assignment will allow me to develop skills in audience identification, viral content creation, social media marketing, distributed content, engagement, and analytics. The objective of this campaign is to connect with an audience who can identify with the Type A perfectionist side of their personality, whether big or small, through gratification in perfect everyday situations.

 

 

Twitter Post:

 

 

Twitter Webcard Engagement:

View post on imgur.com

 

 

BuzzFeed Dashboard:

View post on imgur.com

 

 

Analysis:

Overall, I would deem the campaign a success. The post was picked up by the BuzzFeed Community editors — first promoted to the Community front page and then to the BuzzFeed homepage two days later. The post topped out at about 148,000 total views. I think this post worked well because of its relatability and its well curated material. Each image or video contains subtle “perfectionisms” that appeal to both the organized Type A personality and the laid back Type B personality.

Outside of BuzzFeed, across other social media platforms, Facebook by far generated the most views for the post at 35,098 compared to Twitter’s 161 — despite paid promotion on Twitter and no personal promotion on Facebook. In adjusting for later campaigns, if I scheduled additional tweets and built them into my Twitter campaign, I would have been able to generate more traffic via Twitter and in turn more clicks to the BuzzFeed post.

 

 

 

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Social & Twitter Analysis of the Mannequin Challenge

The Mannequin Challenge is a trending online phenomenon that has taken over social media platforms, especially Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. A Boolean search performed on Sysomos of “mannequin AND challenge” and “#mannequinchallenge” brought up the tweets that had been interacted with and mentioned the most. The most interacted-with tweet was a Police Mannequin Challenge, which took a social justice stance on the viral video structure. The second most interacted-with tweet was a more comedic, albeit cringeworthy, Mannequin Challenge, where a woman finds her boyfriend talking to another woman on the phone and he attempts to use the Mannequin Challenge to evade her wrath. Both tweets can be found below.

This viral video challenge has been approached from all angles, which was the motivation to discover more about it. Everything from the Back Lives Matter Movement and the participants in the 2016 Presidential Election to social figures such as Blac Chyna and Taylor Swift, have taken on this challenge with different intentions. The connotations of these videos range from comedic relief to social justice, and they have had impactful responses from the online social media community.

Consequently, the geographical and gender distribution of the challenge across social media is representative of a relatively cohesive group of social media users. The Sysomos search revealed that the interactions with these tweets were 47% male and 53% female, and that the United States had participated in the challenge the most, representing 60.2% of interactions. The skewed significances of the various Mannequin Challenge videos found online have been made more impactful for their underlying implications.

Sysomos Analysis of the Mannequin Challenge:  

Police Officer Mannequin Challenge Tweet & Analytics: 

Cheater Mannequin Challenge Tweet & Analytics: 

Twitter Spike Analysis & Gender Breakdown of “Mannequin Challenge:”

Timeline Representation of Popularity of the “Mannequin Challenge” on Twitter: 

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Tweeting Live From #NHsmc

Tweets from this Semester

Over this past semester, I have tweeted at least 4 times each week.  Below are my favorites as well as the tweets that received the most engagement determined by Twitter Analytics.

 

This tweet was sent during class when the class was discussing voice and social media.  It was a direct quote that still speaks to me because of the accuracy — Mercedes would never say “bae” in a tweet.  I was able to gain 3 retweets and 5 likes, 452 impressions and 20 engagements.

In September we were asked to create a media post.  I decided to do just that by taking two old photos of mine that I photoshopped over this summer.  I gained 4 likes, as well as 361 impressions and 23 total engagements. These are two of my photos and it was my top media tweet of September.

Never in my life have I made a GIF before this tweet.  So I decided to download a GIF making app, saved it to my phone and uploaded it to Twitter.  I was inspired in Bird Library when it was a bright sunny day and a tad early (even at 12:20pm).  My 5 likes appears to show I did a pretty good job for my first time by creating engagement from all aspects of Twitter and breaking out of my comfort zone.

As one of the first native videos that I have created using the in-app video, I was able to mix up my tweets with a video.  I was once again inspired by a late night at Bird and decided to take a video of freedom.  I gained 4 likes, probably because it is so relevant today — as I sit in Bird now writing this blog post.

 

This was one of the most exciting things that happened to me.  I was able to receive a follow back from Adweek after I sent out this tweet.  I had been tweeting previously with Adweek about their articles and one day during their Adweek Chat, I decided to ask for a follow — and got it!  I received a total of 551 impressions, and 7 likes. The fact that I was able to gain an Adweek still has me in shock.  Adweek is also one of my Top Followers

 

Breaking 60 on my Klout scores was one of my favorite things that happened as a result of COM 427.  I was able to raise my Klout score a total of 12.8 points this semester.  On this tweet I was able to gain 3 likes to date, 29 engagements and 297 impressions.

Despite the fact I sent this tweet at 1:51am, I was actually impressed that I gained 4 likes and 2 reply tweets.  I still need to use this hashtag since I find it increasingly clever and I don’t remember how I came up with it.  Maybe it will be something I pick up when I’m abroad in London.

 

I’d like to thank the alumni of Syracuse for this engagement as the tweet was directed to them.  This tweet to date gained 2 retweets, one from Professor Grygiel and the other from the NewhouseSU account.  I was also able to generate 5 likes.  According to Twitter Analytics it created 16 profile clicks, 9 hashtag clicks, generated 2,463 impressions and was my top tweet of  October.

 

Shortly after Twitter released their new feature of Twitter polls, Twitter then changed the option to favorite a tweet to liking a tweet.  Using emojis and the new features, I decided to take it to people of Twitter for how they felt.  I was able to gain 1 retweet and 10 votes.  I think this showcases the importance of staying relevant.

This tweet was inspired by the class discussion of becoming an activist.  I tweeted out to the Food Bank of CNY and generated 2 retweets and likes to date.  It has 401 impressions to date, and created 9 engagements.  This was also my top tweet of November as seen by Twitter Analytics.

 

Over this semester I tried new things and tweeted using new methods.  At the end of the day — I have to say I’m impressed with the work and engagement I have created.

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Increasing My Influence

My Knowledge

This course really helped increase my following and my Klout score because I was consistently using hashtags and creating new types of content.  This class has taught me not to be limited to just tweeting text. I have learned the importance of using GIFs and photos to create engagement.  The use of hashtags has allowed me to engage with new users.  I was able to achieve a follow from @Adweek which I would have never accomplished if I had not tweeted out to them which started from one of our COM 427 assignments.  Not only was it an extremely satisfying follow, but I worked for it and achieved it.  At the beginning of the semester, I started out with 272 followers, and I now have 324. I was able to gain 52 followers over the duration of the course which is pretty impressive, I think.

I think the recipe for my success was following the assignments and engaging with as many people and accounts as possible.  Keeping up to date with social trends and news also helps keep content fresh.  Photos and GIFs, as mentioned earlier, definitely creates more engagement probably because it breaks the clutter of the Twitter feed.  While I do not exactly know what doesn’t work to gain followers, I do think that excessively tweeting (ie. live tweeting) can cause a drop in followers.

Klout

My Klout score was directly affected by COM 427.  As you can see from the beginning of the semester in September, my Klout score started at 49.77.  By the end of the course I was able to reach a high of 62.57 which is a 12.8 point difference.  Another thing to note is that apparently jumping from a 50 Klout score to a 60 Klout score is one of the hardest things to achieve, according to my Advertising professor.  None the less, my Klout score has been a direct correlation from this social media course.

Conclusion

COM 427 has helped my social media influence skyrocket.  I was able to increase my Klout score by approximentaly 13 points and gain 52 new followers.  I learned the ins and outs of social media and I couldn’t be happier with all my new knowledge.

 

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#Trump2016

Overview

The 2016 presidential debate in going on full swing and the hashtag that is one to take a look at is none other but #Trump2016.  With a collection of both positive and negative tweets, Trump is a candidate that is being tweeted about all over the nation.

Live Tweets

Conclusion

From this collection of live tweets, it is evident that Donald Trump, regardless if you are for or against him is one to be talked about.  His social media presence is higher than any other and on September 29th, he had the highest campaign digital campaign score of 75, according to The Week.  The collection of #Trump2016 tweets are both positive and negative, some Twitter users are just putting their opinions out, and other tweets are from activist groups like @SoCal4Trump and @HispanicsTrump.  #Trump2016 also includes tweets from the presidential candidate himself, @realDonaldTrump. There is also a collection of negative tweets within the hashtag, which creates engagement with people who dislike Trump and brings another view to the hashtag feed.  Overall, #Trump2016 for the most part show that Donald Trump has doing well in the race with consistent poll updates, updates on where Trump is campaigning and supporters showing what Trump is saying during his debates that make him a good candidate.

Regardless of any political views on Donald Trump, it is important to realize that #Trump2016 is gaining constant attraction on Twitter and it seems that he will continuously gain attraction until the primary elections where Donald Trump’s fate will be decided.

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BingeFlix Is In

 

At hard work binge watching SVU #BingeFlix

My meme centers around the idea of the binge TV watching culture that we see today. It features a closeup of SpongeBob looking exhausted and nervous, and says “Watching your 8th consecutive SVU episode like”. This will certainly be viral in nature for many reasons. The theory behind the idea that this will be viral is that the meme is not only humorous, but it also touches upon something so common to our culture today.

Comedy is Key

The comedy aspect of the meme is sure to draw in engagements. The closeup image of SpongeBob with wrinkled, dried out skin, puffy red eyes, and sweat dripping down his face shows a dramatized version of what it’s like to watch the same series on Netflix for over eight hours. It generates humor because many people can relate to the feeling of tiredness, nervousness for what is about to happen next (especially in an overly-intense episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), and the resistance to turn off the TV or stop the show. However, even though people may look or feel just as worse as this dried out, exhausted version of SpongeBob, they still continue to binge watch television shows on Netflix.

A New Kind of Binging 

Can the mid-2010s be described as the years of binge watching TV and Netflix? Most people would agree that continuously watching the same TV show for hours is something that defines part of our culture these days. Therefore, the meme will go viral because people find interest in things that they can relate to. The text and picture within the meme perfectly depict something that is so common to many people in society, and for that reason many people will want to engage with the content and meme.

Even though the caption uses the example of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, virtually anyone can relate to this example. Many people find themselves unable to stop an episode of whatever their favorite TV show is. For that reason, this does not just pertain to SVU fans, but relates to every binge-watcher out there in the world. These binge-watchers will therefore like the meme whether SVU is their show of choice or not.

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy

In order to maximize the amount of engagements that I receive on my posts about the meme, I am planning on posting the meme to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr. My plan is to post the meme a total of 12 times within the week of November 11 to November 18, and rotate between the numerous social media accounts. I also plan to optimize the amount of people who see the meme by posting to each account at different times during the day. For example, if I were to post in the meme to Twitter in the morning one day, I would post it to Twitter in the evening a few days later. Therefore, those who typically are busy in the mornings may see it the next time it is posted later in the day.

I am looking forward to this challenge, and believe that my meme will satisfy the requirements of being “viral.”

 

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