Reads of the Week 08/23/2014 — Social Media Frontiers
There’s a lot of content out there in Content Marketing Land—which is a good thing. This week, these authors explored the frontiers of social media for the benefit of us all. From challenging the Facebook algorithm to making the most of emerging social apps and services, here are three great pieces to help you get the most out of your online marketing efforts.
Getting to News Feed Zero: What Happens When You Hide Everything On Facebook?
By Luke O’Neil for Slate
Favorite Soundbite:
Facebook was correcting for my own consciousness: No, you do want to see this. The algorithm started to seem like a parent trying to please a fussy child at dinnertime. OK, you don’t want your vegetables—how about chicken fingers? You love chicken fingers, right? Here came the flood of Gawker, Vice, Deadspin, Salon, and Business Insider posts. No way you’re going to hide all of these!I hid all of them. A hundred more posts and I was done.
I came back a couple of hours later to see what destruction I had wrought. The birthday was still right there, beating like a tell-tale heart, rising up again and again like an unkillable horror-movie monster…
Takeaway:
A fun read exploring where no Facebook user has gone before. Under the stress of universal unliking, Facebook’s algorithm has a hard time deciding its next move. I like the exasperated parent/toddler comparison.
LACMA Is Killing It on Snapchat
By Jean Trinh for the LAist
Favorite Soundbite:
We have to give LACMA kudos for not only being one of the few art museums on Snapchat, but for also making memes on their artwork that reference Beyonce and Mean Girls.
Takeaway:
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has gotten noticed for its brand promotion on Snapchat. This is a succinct visual post without a lot of analysis, but the benefit here is seeing this newer, little-understood social media app successfully put to use by a big brand to engage a specific demographic.
Learning from Twitter to Make Medium
By Ev Williams for DesignerFund.com’s Bridge Blog
Favorite Soundbite:
Making something initially difficult to use or access can make it more rewarding. Getting started with Twitter, for instance, was tougher than just making an account. “If it’s hard to figure out, and you figure it out, you’re cool,” Ev explains. If there’s some friction to the process of figuring out a new program, people feel like they’ve earned it. Once people had gotten the hang of how to use Twitter, Ev says, they tended to keep using it for a long time.
Takeaway:
This is a succinct post where Ev Williams describes foundational principles learned through his experiences with Twitter and Blogger as applied to his new venture, Medium.com, a WYSIWYG blogging platform. My prediction? Medium is a space to watch for in 2015. It marries the blog storytelling, LinkedIn thought leadership, and the community, conversations, sharing, and feedback of Twitter.