[VIDEO] Teens and Tech
We've posted videos before about the evolution of the internet and how consumer behavior is changing rapidly to keep pace with the ever-changing mass media landscape. Well, it's about that time again to share another video we spotted that highlights some trends in how teenagers use technology.
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Old Spice University
By now, you've no doubt seen the latest internet meme to take the world by storm...the Old Spice Man and his personalized responses to just about anyone asking for his advice. As reported by PC Magazine, "Old Spice this week capitalized on the popularity of its recent TV advertisements with a series of YouTube videos in which "Old Spice guy" Isaiah Mustafa answered questions from the Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit communities." The response has been wildly popular and blogs ranging from Techcrunch and Mashable to the Huffington Post have picked up the action.
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Are you being followed?
The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research recently released the results of their third annual survey on social media in college admissions. Research continues to show that social media adoption at four year colleges and universities is outpacing that of Fortune 500 companies. Trends indicate that awareness and engagement in social media in admissions has grown at a steady rate over the past three years.
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Social Media Layers
During the past few years, social media sites have encouraged participation by adding their site as another layer to the internet. By this I mean, not only can I read the news on the New York Times website, but I can also share the article through Twitter, LinkedIn, Mixx, Digg, MySpace, Facebook and Yahoo! Buzz.
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Making Sure You Count
While some industries have taken a long time to catch onto social media, the government in particular always seems to lag behind the rest of us. It took matters of national security for the military to finally take steps to establish guidelines for its use. Most recently the Census Bureau is trying something new- a public relations campaign for the 2010 census.
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Blurring Generational Lines
Most people who follow social networks know the latest demographic trends: more older people are adopting Facebook, Twitter attracts mostly Gen Xers, and mySpace is quickly becoming a graveyard of neglected profiles. And now another shift is starting to occur- Twitter users are becoming younger, attracting more Gen Yers. As someone who would be considered Gen Y, I’ve definitely noticed a slew of my friends and acquaintances moving some of their social networking activity to Twitter. During one conversation, someone commented on how cluttered looking Facebook had become and a Twitter friend replied that clutter was the reason she started using Twitter more.
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Just one of the guys…
While some institutions are still trying to figure out whether or not they want to include social media into their marketing mix, it appears marketers have already made up their minds…”No worries, social media, you’re allowed to hang out with us.” A survey by MarketingSherpa this week shows that social media has earned its spot to complete the holy trinity for online marketers: email, search, and now social media. But will it replace either email or search? Not according to most.
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What’s yours is mine?
I was just reading this Q&A with an associate professor from University of Texas at Austin, about how social media has changed the relationships between students, professors and administrators. One question towards the end of the interview made me thankful that Facebook didn’t exist as I started my freshman year of college:
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Context Collapse
As my generation starts to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, about 40% of my friends now have an active account. The ones who Twitter are just as quick to defend their new addictions as the non-Twitterers are to put it down- it seems to be a topic that no one remains dispassionate about. Yesterday, I walked to the farmers market with a non-Twitterer who brought up the outages on Twitter and Facebook that occurred a few days ago. She didn’t understand how so many people could be upset about it, “What did these people do last year? Twitter isn’t that old!”
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Breaking the customer service mold
Stories of social media gone wrong, especially in relation to college admissions and job interviews abound. We’ve all heard of the perfect candidate getting rejected because of questionable photos on Facebook or a political scandal of the day resulting from a controversial online post. These incidents, no doubt cause a lot of embarrassment, but rarely result in anything more than a slap on the wrist. So I was surprised the other day, when I heard on the radio, that a woman was being sued over a Twitter post. Her property management company was suing her for libel over the following tweet: “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”
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