We Know Social Networking

I've never realized how much we take for granted our skill with social networking. By we, I mean my friends and I. I use Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest regularly just for fun. Something I've wanted to do in my free time for years has helped me become a valuable asset to a company. Just the other day my father asked me to upload a picture to Twitter. I had never done it before but despite that, I had no doubt that I would be able to do it immediately. Even if I haven't done something on the Web, I've done enough that I'm confident I could figure out anything quickly (short of actual coding).

Upon uploading, my dad thought I was a wizard.

A friend of mine from high school has 31,000 Instagram followers. I have no idea when she decided to be an Instagram celeb but it's crazy to look at her photos and see up to 4,000 likes on a single one. She has linked her Instagram to her blog and her unique branding is already apparent from her choice of picture, captions, and the fact that she responds to every single comment on her photos.

There are a lot of different things we can do to strengthen a social media appeal. Yesterday Amanda asked me to look into a new feature of Google called "rich snippets." Basically, rich snippets are an attempt by Google to help authors claim web content as their own. It has been easy for identities to be passed around on the Internet; there are multiple fake celebrity accounts on every social networking site and it can be difficult to determine if the person creating content is really who he or she claims to be. Rich snippets are an enhanced response to a Google search that includes a picture and more creative detail. They can be obtained through several different ways, like verifying your email and linking your Google+ account to your website and vice versa. Performing all the actions that claim to get you a rich snippet boosts your chances of receiving one, but even if someone does all the different things a rich snippet is still not guaranteed immediately because Google hasn't rolled out the programming for everyone, just a few random accounts. Social networking is kind of like that. There are a lot of different things you can do to reach out and when combined the effect can be stronger but sometimes even that doesn't work right away. Companies need to think diversely. Social networking is a contrary creature and there's no one answer but we groovy young things know and actually enjoy navigating the instability.

I hope everyone has an awesome day!

Hanna