College Students Still Use Snapchat Despite Hack

By: Sarah Jones

Snapchat's recently had 100,000, supposedly private, pictures leaked onto the Internet. Surprisingly, I haven't heard of many people who decided to stop using the app. Even, college students, one of the largest demographics who use Snapchat, have said they still trust Snapchat and will continue to use it.

One would think that once there was the risk of those pictures coming out they would think about not using the app anymore. That's not the case. A study recently done by Sumpto, showed that 75% of college students would keep on using Snapchat the same way they did before the hack, and 58% said they still trusted Snapchat.

 

Infographic from Sumpto/Mashable

 

This might mean that what they're sending might not be bad at all, and that they don't care who sees the pictures they take. I think that society thinks all college students use Snapchat for is to send risque pictures, which some of them probably are.

Snapchat has said that they can see the pictures everyone takes. Which is just another reason why you have to be careful with everything you put on the Internet, post in a social media site, or engage with in an app. Just don't be dumb with what you post. If you're an open book and don't care if you're private pictures get leaked then great, but if you don't want them to get leaked; just don't do it at all.

However, I don't think college students are using Snapchat for taking scandalous pictures. I think a lot of students use Snapchat to show friends what they'd been doing that day through the "My Story" feature, send ugly faces to their best friends, or take pictures of silly things they'd seen that day. Also, Snapchat recently added the use of video chat and instant messaging to their app, which allowed a lot of people another way of communicating without just taking pictures or videos one-sided. So basically, I think Snapchat is just a more convenient, and instant way for people to share pictures.

Since college students are such a large demographic for Snapchat, they have rolled out a new feature called, "Campus Story," which allows students to add pictures and videos to one specific feed that can only be seen by other people at that same campus. However, college students are reluctant to use it only if school administrators also have access to the feed.

Facebook to Implement "Safety Check" in Natural Disasters

While looking around on Mashable a couple of days ago I came across an article about a new feature that Facebook will use when a natural disaster strikes in your area. Basically what will happen is if you're geographical location on your phone and Facebook app is near the area where a natural disaster just occurred, Facebook will send you a notification that will ask you if you're okay and give you an option to mark that you are safe.

Facebook Safety Check Feature

So in reality, Facebook just turned into your mother.  

Which I actually think is great. In the event of a natural disaster, there could be power lines down or so many people trying to get through on the phone lines that you can't get through to your family and friends. This Safety Check feature gives people the option of letting everyone know that you're safe in the event that you have no other option of getting into contact with the people that need to know.

This new feature came about during the 2011 Japan earthquake, when Facebook engineers in Japan made a disaster message board, which then turned into Safety Check. Also, after Hurricane Sandy Google began using Public Alerts and Apple has Emergency Alerts imbedded into the settings of their system. So, there have always been aspects of safety, but I think Facebook may have found themselves in a game changer.

Another cool feature is that you can click on the natural disaster Safety Check event and see all of your friends on Facebook in that area and see who has clicked, "I'm safe," and who hasn't.

Facebook Safety Check Feature

I think it's a good way of putting people's nerves at ease. I know that whenever a natural disaster happens in places where I have friends and family members who live there, my first thought is, "I wonder if they're okay!" So knowing you can check out there Facebook and see that they've checked "I'm safe" is a really great tool that I'm glad social media sites are starting use.

Facebook Wants Your Health Data Too

By: Sarah Jones

Facebook is in talks with various medical industry experts to test and develop the app. The app would allow users to get into a community with other users with the same ailments. Because of Facebook's recent privacy concerns, which included Facebook manipulating users emotions during a research study, Facebook is deciding to make it an app separate from Facebook. While it's not a definite thing, it sounds like Facebook wants to get in on the health craze that so many other companies are doing. In the new iOS8 update, Apple added a health app that allows users to be able to keep up with and log their weight, height, sleep habits, calories burned, and distance walked/run. Google is also preparing Google Fit for Android users that has basically the same things that the Apple app has. 

                                         Facebook Health     

I was excited to get the new Apple health app with my iOS8 update however, it's been a little difficult to use. You're supposed to be able to sync your other health apps with this one in order to have all of your health needs in one specific location but I've been having to enter my data manually. I hope that whatever Facebook has up their sleeve with their health app is better functioning than Apple's. I think having a community to share your struggles with your specific ailment at your fingertips through an app is innovative and comforting to some people. There's supposedly also a prevention side to the app as well that allows people to become aware of certain ailments. 

The only thing that people should be wary about is, of course, the privacy. Exactly what is Facebook going to do with the health information that you have entered into their app? People aren't naive in this day and age that they would be surprised to find out what is happening with their private information. However, with the app having a community aspect to it, I would assume the people using the app are okay with sharing their personal details to the other persons with the same ailment in their community. Some people already do it on Facebook, whether someone has the same struggles as they do or not. Nothing is private anymore and if you don't want something that you feel is super private on the Internet, like your health, then don't get the app. But I feel like the people getting this app are going to be the people that already share openly on Facebook and don't care that everyone knows their business. Overall I think this is a good concept and some people will probably really benefit from using this app to use when they need advice or comfort from other people with the same illness. 

Professional Twitter vs. Personal Twitter

By: Sarah Jones

Recently, I came across an article that discussed some Twitter faux pas. After reading the article, I do see how some of these behaviors could be a turnoff to employers, but I don't think people have to get rid of them altogether. 

Beverley Reinemann, the writer of the article, said you should stop doing these seven things on Twitter: tweeting about controversial issues, forgetting that everyone can see your tweets, not having a focus (meaning you're tweeting about 100 different things instead of one specific thing), engaging in negative conversations, tweeting too much, focusing only on yourself, and overusing hashtags. 

I agree with Reinemann on some Twitter etiquette like not having negative conversations, especially on the Internet. It leads to cyber bullying, which is a big problem in the world today. Also, I agree with watching what you say because even if your profile is private, all of your followers can see what you tweet, and it could come back to bite you later if you tweet something unfavorable. People have the ability to screenshot so even if you delete it, someone might be holding on to the evidence. Like when companies use tweets to promote themselves during times when they shouldn't. For example, Kenneth Cole tweeted this during the revolutions in Cairo:

                                          Picture from Business Insider article

Aside from the things that I agree with, I think it's healthy to tweet about controversial issues, as long as it's in a respectful manner and you aren't bashing the other side with hateful comments. You can have all seven of those Twitter faux pas in your personal Twitter; you just need to be aware of your audience. I think it's okay to not have a focus, tweet however much you want, and overuse hashtags if it is on your personal account. However, I feel like the guidelines in this article are for professional accounts only. You probably shouldn't do any of these Twitter behaviors if your intention is to appear professional. Your focus should be on what you want your career to be and plan to tweet about only that topic. 

As I head into my senior year, I want to make sure I look professional to future employers and because of this I made a second, and more professional, Twitter over the summer. My personal Twitter is private, not because I have anything to hide, but because I want to share what's happening in my life, good and bad, with my family and share my professional thoughts and ideas with fellow PR professionals through my separate professional account. I feel like if I were to mesh the two together my focus for PR would be jumbled together with my love for live tweeting The Tonight Show. No future employer wants to sift through all of my incoherent babbling about what happened to me that day to find my thoughts on what's happening in the PR world. Which is why I choose to keep the two separate.

New Facebook Update Brings Fresher Content To News Feed

By: Sarah Jones

Recently I have noticed posts from three or four days earlier showing up in my current news feed on Facebook. I didn't really think much about it, and was only slightly annoyed. Until I saw an article on Mashable about Facebook bringing fresher and timelier content to its news feed. It made a lot more sense after reading it and furthering investigating what I was seeing on my news feed. However, I'm still not sure how this update will guarantee people will see your posts. It seems like the only way your friends will see them is if it's getting lots of exposure with comments and likes, or you posted about something that is on Facebook's trending list for that day. 

There are two specific updates that Facebook will be rolling out, according to a blog posted to Facebook's newsroom. One of them will be the monitoring of trending topics. Which means stories or friends status updates about what is trending that day will be top priority and the first things you see on your news feed when you log in. I think this is actually a pretty good idea, it gets people talking about what is happening in the world, and gets people to be more interactive with each other. Also, if a company were trying to get exposure this would be good news to them because they could update about the trending topic and get more exposure from its followers that way. However, of course, they need to do it in a tasteful and non-offensive way. 

                                          Facebook Trending Topic

The second update is looking at how many people have commented or liked a post to determine how high up it should be seen in the news feed. So if people are commenting and liking it right after it’s posted then its relevancy and popularity make it shoot to the top of the news feed. However, after a few hours if people have stopped interacting with the post, its relevancy goes down, pushing it further down the news feed. So basically, the relevancy and popularity of your posts is the deciding factor on where in your friends news feeds it will show up. If you want to be seen on Facebook, you will need to try and post statuses that will get people talking. I heard on the radio last week, where engagements, baby announcements, weddings and other things that deserve "congratulations" show up higher on the news feed because of the volume of comments it receives, that's why you are always seeing a new person announcing an engagement or upcoming baby. It's Facebook's strategy on how to get exposure to content. However, Facebook says it'll be rolling out these updates over a period of time, and users shouldn't see a significant change in their news feeds. 

Introductory Post.

Hello friends!

I've started this blog to share my thoughts and opinions on how the world is changing with social media, and how public relations professionals use it to their advantage.

Not many people can define what social media, or strategic communications is, but through different articles, documentaries, and things that have gone viral, maybe we can decipher how the world is changing through these mediums.

Also, I just watched Terms and Conditions May Apply in my communications research class, and it was very eye-opening with the extreme sides of social media and other various Internet sites like, Google and Amazon. So if you haven't watched it, you should. It's on Netflix.

-Sarah