These 4 Brands Used Periscope Like No One Else in 2015

When Meerkat blew up at last year’s SXSW, you just knew brands were going to flock to live streaming. That potential for revenue is likely what prompted Twitter to quickly acquire Meerkat’s competitor Periscope. In its first six months, the app attracted a staggering number of users — 10 million, to be exact. It’s also attracted its fair share of brands.

General Electric
GE was an early user of Periscope, just as it has been with many emerging platforms. One of its initial efforts was previewing Bill Nye’s appearance on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio. While that was a nice warm up, #DRONEWEEK is where the corporate giant really shined. It kitted out commercially available drones to take viewers on live tours of five different GE facilities, showing off everything from a wind farm to a jet engine plant.

Ralph Lauren
Periscope also has become a fast favorite of many fashion brands. DKNY showed off its design studio’s closet while Marc Jacobs himself held a live Q&A after his Resort ’16 fashion show. But no label has gone as all-in as Ralph Lauren did in September. Not content to merely stream their New York Fashion Week show to people’s phones, they beamed the live feed to a billboard in London’s Piccadilly Circus (the British Times Square).

Doritos
Frito-Lay has been pretty inventive in its Periscoping. Their U.S.-based marketing team used the platform to host a game show called Doritos Roulette, where viewers were randomly chosen to “spin” a wheel for fun and prizes. Not to be outdone, the Canadian marketing team followed up with a 12-hour stream of stuff being destroyed by cannons (ostensibly to promote their new Doritos Collisions).

Adidas

While some brands have employed Periscope to share behind-the-scenes moments, Adidas has taken that to the nth degree. Last March, the footwear company actually live streamed Real Madrid’s James Rodríguez signing a contract extension with the brand. While that sounds a little niche, you can bet Nike would’ve done the same with Jordan if they could’ve.

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Getting it right with social when everything we know is wrong

Though still relatively new to the marketing sphere, social media has undergone many incarnations. As a communication tool, what is its true branding value and purpose?

There was a time in history where the prevailing wisdom of scholars was that the Earth was flat; the brightest minds of their time were certain that reaching the end of the world meant reaching a cliff, rather than an unending continuation. When reflecting on the early history of social media and the views of the visionary class, you might be forgiven for thinking their opinions represented unwavering fact.

Consider just the following views, starting with sheer viability (especially in the wake of MySpace’s demise):

• Facebook remaining relevant as audiences grow older? A fad that will age poorly.
• Facebook scaling an audience? Impossible.  
• Pinterest? Mom’s play site. 
• SnapChat? Your kids' sexting app.
• Of course earned media will always reign supreme!

The early wisdom of the social space was one of distance – it was not a place for brands and digital marketers. It wasn’t until brands noticed the ongoing dialog that the industry began to rethink this. Social platforms presented a new opportunity to connect directly with audiences, and, in a quick 180, brands began talking to people as if they were long-lost friends and family.

But the desire to make social the new source for customer service has also created as many problems as it has solved. Brands struggled to find balance between buying exposure and favor with earning trust and inclusion at every turn – that is, until the 2013 Super Bowl.

Everyone knows the story of the blackout during the game and how Oreo's real-time response via its "Dunk in the Dark" tweet changed everything we thought about social. With reported figures suggesting more than 500 million earned media impressions, this was a historic moment for the industry and a huge moment for brands.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Now brands had a new purpose – to find its own Oreo moment. Many have tried, yet few have succeeded - actually, most have looked laughably bad. But striving for Oreo greatness created a reason for brands to be on social, with smart, hip, culturally relevant content as the ideal target to hit.

Living in Missouri, the utilization of social media has created a very different experience over the past 18 months. I live less than 15 minutes from #Ferguson, so the social rise of #BlackLivesMatter and the efforts of ConcernedStudent1950 (@CS_1950) from University of Missouri are very close to home. They've all played out for the world to see, and this is largely because of social media.

For years, Twitter's conversation on the Arab Spring felt distant - as things happening across the globe and beyond our daily lives tend to do - but the events of August 2015 changed everyone’s personal perspective. Complex issues were truncated to 140 characters and dangerously debated in Facebook posts. Suddenly, for better or worse, social media was driving the story.

Once again, this abrupt shift social’s functional objective calls everything we thought we knew about these communication platforms into question. And, if everything we once believed to be true about social media has been proven wrong, perhaps the target for brands is more complicated than fulfilling the role of that quick-witted guy in the corner with topical joke and wink.

When I began this column, I was actually on a plane - the date: November 13, 2015. Taking a break from emails, I fired up Hootsuite only to discover that the world had been rocked by the news from Paris. In the aftermath, brands have respectfully shown support and compassion for the lives lost, acknowledging the larger tragedy. These responses represent progress and show early steps toward becoming social brands of the world.

To all our friends in Paris, you’re in our hearts and our thoughts. -TH ❤️🇫🇷 #PrayforParis pic.twitter.com/7elzJMsHYN

— Tommy Hilfiger (@TommyHilfiger) November 14, 2015

If you're in Paris in need of emergency accommodation, our hosts have opened their doors https://t.co/E3TUbqD8m2

— Airbnb (@Airbnb) November 14, 2015

So, did we have the role of brands on social all wrong? Now the answer seems obvious.

As brands seek to play a role in people’s lives, they cannot simply be there to add a funny quip or a solution to a simple problem. Just as scholars realized the world was not flat, this realization opens up a host of “Now what?” moments, posing a plethora of new questions: How can we do that? Who do we empower to do that on our behalf? And, to twist a famed Facebook mantra, are we ready to "fail fast" when the stakes are higher than ever before?

If the social media world is round, fully-formed, and connected, then brands have an opportunity to be both citizens and partners on the voyage ahead, thus creating a better place for all.

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Extreme Makeover – Using Social Media to Build Your Event Audience

Planners and their clients would both like to be able to use social media to build a robust audience for their events. The key to doing this is to think beyond the boundaries of the event itself. True audience development is an ongoing process. Even if your main goal is to promote a single event, you still have to think in a broader time frame. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your promotional efforts.

FIND YOUR PEOPLE

First of all, you’ll need to identify who is part of your event’s natural audience, and then consider where the best places are to find them.

Do your people tend to hang out on Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? If you’re not sure, then give yourself some time to find out. Sharing your messaging on multiple platforms makes sense for a few reasons. Firstly, there’s a positive impact to becoming a ubiquitous presence. If people see you everywhere they turn, it reinforces the sense that you have your act together, that your team knows what it’s doing, and that you are substantive – worth taking the time to investigate further. Secondly, by testing out the viability of different platforms, you’ll get to see where you achieve the most traction. Then, you can focus your resources more in the places where you get the best results.

THINK YEAR ROUND

This strategy makes perfect sense if you are planning a yearly event. However, it even applies for a singular occasion. You are building a community, and that takes time. Think in terms of teasers – content that you can begin posting months and months in advance, to start building buzz around your event. You might want to start with compelling images and other multi-media content. Make sure to add a distinctive hashtag that will identify the content as yours and help you track all activity related to it as people share or comment on your posts.

ENCOURAGE CONVERSATION

When building an event audience, it’s important to make participants feel like they have some stake in the development of the event itself. If appropriate, invite suggestions or take polls regarding choices in décor or other production elements. Think about using an event platform, that allows event registrants to interact with one another as well as with presenters and exhibitors, before, during and after the event. After the event, share pictures and wrap-up stories, and encourage attendees to share their feedback with you and with one another.

DON’T STOP

Once you understand who your people are, where they are hanging out and what’s important to them, it’s your job to continue a dialogue with them. This is particularly important if you are building a yearly event. You will find that the more you treat your audience as an integral part of your event, the more they will want to stay involved and bring in their friends and colleagues. Don’t forget – social media streams move very fast. If you want to hold people’s attention, you’re going to have to maintain your messaging well past the days immediately before and after your event.

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Twitter Adding Features: Will it Change the Social Network?

Recently Twitter announced the rollout of new features, most notably the ability to have group messages.

Being interested not just in technology, but also having a keen interest in unintended consequences, I was intrigued by this. You see, up until now when you wanted to communicate on Twitter you had three options, you could send a private message to one user, assuming they were following you, you could post publicly or you could set your entire tweet stream to private and only share it with approved followers. The end result of that, was that Twitter became sort of a public market, for better or worse. As an event unfolded, for example, you could use a hashtag to follow along with others thoughts, jokes, etc. and contribute to that public conversation, or you could just watch it go by. But it was occurring out in the public space that has become Twitter. How will that change now that Twitter has a less public space available?

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand why they are adding the group message feature. Other social networks have it, and social networks are absolutely an “adopt or die” industry. People have been asking for it, and I’m sure they’ll make good use of it. What I can’t help wondering, however, is if that will change the nature of how we use Twitter. Rather than having the public space to comment on whatever topic you feel it necessary to comment on, will many of these discussions start to take place in private? On Sunday, for example, will there be a bit less public discussion of the Super Bowl, and the advertisements of course, or will people be more likely to start a group message thread with the small group of friends for a freer discussion? Will political discussions become closed echo chambers, where I can gather a list of friends who think like I do, and we can tweet just to one another?

You see, I think all of these things will happen, slowly, and people who are so inclined will move their frank discussions to the more private setting. How will that change the user experience in the public space? Will it start to become more dominated by those who want the attention of the larger public, or have we gotten so used to that public discourse that group messaging will not have any impact on the overall experience other than adding an option for some things that we aren’t putting into the public space of Twitter now?

Time will tell, but for now, what are your plans? Do you plan to change how you use Twitter and take more discussions to a group instead of the public space?

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6 Strategies to Add to Your Social Media Marketing Plan for 2015

Did you know the average person spends 4 years looking down at their cell phone over a lifetime? To be honest, I’m somewhat surprised it’s not even more (but I suspect this number to increase). As I glanced around my family room on Christmas evening I noticed every one of my family members scrolling through their social feeds, excluding my nephew; he’s 6 months old, but oddly always gravitates towards the iPhone (although it’s typically just an attempt to eat it).

This is all somewhat depressing, but as my mom recently explained Facebook has given her the power to reconnect with friends and even family members that she hasn’t spoken to in over twenty years. We’ve all heard stories of long-lost siblings, lovers, and guardians finding each other via social platforms. Not to mention the powerful charitable movements like the Ice Bucket Challenge, which helped raise over $100 million for ALS, a 3,500% increase from the $2.8 million raised during the same time period the year prior, according to Forbes.

 

2014 has been another thrilling year in the world of social media, from Instagram reaching 300 million users, surpassing Twitter, Facebook’s continuous algorithm updates pushing organic reach to a plummeting death, LinkedIn’s new publishing platform giving users a powerful way to build their brand, and SnapChat establishing themselves as a bigger player by displaying advertisements and sponsored stories. These updates are just dusting the surface of social media changes over the past year, but what does this all mean for your marketing plan in 2015?

We all know that social media is critical to every business’s marketing initiatives. Not having active social channels for your business is equivalent to showing up to work without pants; it’s embarrassing and not socially accepted. No one wants to be the idiot who shows up to work in their underwear, but what’s the point of maintaining social channels if they’re not adding value to your business? Well, there is none. You should be using social to do one or several of the following: establishing and growing brand recognition, gaining qualified leads, or improving customer relationships (ideally all three).

In my post last year covering social media strategy suggestions for 2014, I stressed tactics such as creating a social media marketing plan and sticking to it, going above and beyond in customer service, embracing mishaps, and so on. Let me assure you, these strategies are all still critical, but with the New Year upon us I have some new and improved tips up my sleeve to add to your social media marketing plan for 2015.

#1: Build a Community Rather Than a Number of Followers

Have you ever looked through the people you follow on Twitter or Pinterest? You probably see about .05% of things they tweet or pin. I’m grabbing this metric out of thin air, but since everyone who’s anyone is on social media, even if you are posting regularly your followers are probably not very engaged with your brand. The number of people following you can only take you so far. “Twitter is sort of like the ‘live TV’ of social media,” according to Marketing Land’s Danny Sullivan. “If you’re not tuned in to catch a particular tweet live, then you’ve missed it.” This doesn’t apply just for Twitter, the reach of Facebook’s organic posts has drastically dropped making it much more difficult for brands to stand out, even if you’re following their page (we’ll get into this more in tip #3)…

Yes, having 10,000+ followers is noteworthy, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many followers you have if they’re not interacting and paying attention to your content. What can be done to build a community and increase engagement with your current and potential followers?

• Insert some personality, humor, and spunk into your brand. Remember, social media has the word “social” in it for a reason. Yes, some use platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to gather industry-related or world news, but more often than not social media is used to entertain and kill time. Your marketing messages need to adjust accordingly because if you’re using the same copy that you’re using in, let’s say search or email marketing, then your followers are going to remain oblivious to your brand. BarkBox, one of the trending box delivery services on the market, which caters exclusively to adorable doggies, is one company to take note of. Founded in 2011, BarkBox has done an impressive job of growing their business in a short time frame, with a large chunk of their marketing focusing on growing and creating engaging social content. Their Facebook page is hysterically entertaining, with each post featuring an adorable pup and tagline as if the dog was actually speaking to the reader. This works because it’s a. adorable b. hysterical and c. relatable. Just check out this post below with almost 3,000 likes, 42 comments, and 170 shares after just 9 hours. This massive amount of interactions and shares not only establishes brand authority, but also drastically increases chances of this post showing up on a friend’s newsfeed (therefore gaining brand awareness, followers, leads, and customers).

• Converse directly with your followers: Literally have a conversation with them, retweet them, like and comment on their posts, and directly ask them to interact with your content. The insurance company Allstate created a separate Twitter account for their popular advertising character, Mayhem, who continously “captures the life events you just can’t seem to avoid.” Almost everything they post is geared towards talking to their fans, whether that be retweeting, asking questions, running a contest, or even sending #MayhemValentine’s to followers. This Twitter account also follows my point above regarding using humor and personality in each post. Recently they ran an overwhelming successful social media campaign #MayhemSale, in which Mayhem possed as a burglar selling all his best burgles online. It sounds sort of bizzare, but it worked and created an insane amount of buzz. Just look at the one tweet below with 4.6K retweets.

To conclude, when posting to your social channels think outside of the box and devise clever ways to get your audience to interact with your brand.

#2: Create Powerful Social Media Movements Across all Social Channels

If you want your audience to stay engaged, you need to be engaging. One great way to do this is to create social campaigns that run across all your social platforms. The important thing to note here is that anyone can run a contest or create a social campaign, so you need to make yours stand out by adding a charitable, inspirational, or emotional component. Any element that pulls at the heart strings works well. If your company already is involved with volunteer work, which many are, then this is one great way to inspire and engage your followers. I know what you’re thinking, it seems somewhat morally corrupt to use a charity relationship for marketing purposes, but on the other hand you’re promoting that organization and encouraging more people to get involved. So how do you apply this across several channels? Start by…

• Telling a powerful story: A whole story? Huh? But you’re only allotted so many characters on social channels. Yes, yes, I know, but there are ways to pull powerful quotes and engaging tidbits from a story that will leave the reader wanting more, therefore directing them to your website. Charity:water does this phenomenally well. Yes, they are already a charitable company with the mission of providing clean drinking water to every person in the world, but as a non-profit organization they’ve been incredibly successful continuously trumping their fundraising goals, and I’d be willing to bet a big part of this is due to how gracefully they tell their story to social followers. Their content has a way of spurring their audience to get involved and contribute to the organization. When I first learned about charity:water at Hubspot’s Inbound conference in 2013, their heart-wrenching video spurred me to create a birthday campaign in which you ask your friends and family to donate rather than give presents. One recent campaign that they’ve shared throughout all of their social channels is called “Why I give” in which individuals who donate share their stories. This adds the human element, tells a story, and even has the power of spurring followers to action. Take a look at the post below featuring a “well-known, well-loved charity:water supporter,” Shakil Kan. The quote featured tells a mini-story and is inspirational, intriguing the viewer to click.

After following the link the viewer is then directed to the full story on the charity:water blog, where several powerful stories are featured.

I encourage you to think of ways you can use your social channels to tell motivational stories to your viewers. They don’t need to be rooted in charity. For example if you sell B2B software you could share stories from your happiest clients on your blog and then create a social campaign with a unique slogan and hashtag to promote and create a movement around their stories.

• Brand your movement with a unique name and hashtags: Branding your movement will make it memorable and stick out in the mind of your followers. Take time to brainstorm actionable ideas that will get followers involved, whether that be by posting photos and using your hashtag to group them, running a contest, or throwing events run by your company. One actionable social media movement was run by the world-renowned fashion brand, Marc Jacobs, titled #CastMeMarc. Jacobs took to Twitter last Spring to encourage his followers to post pictures of themselves on social platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, using the hashtag to gain the once-in-a-lifetime chance of becoming one of the newest faces of the brand. The result? Thousands upon thousands of photographs were shared across social media. Even today, long after the contest has ended, people are still using the hashtag in hopes that Jacobs won’t be able to resist their photogenic faces (i.e. the tweet below).

 

Please note: You don’t have to one of the most recognized fashion brands in the world (like Marc Jacobs is) to make this work for your brand. For example let’s say you run an athletic clothing store and offer free yoga classes at several of your store fronts – this would be a great actionable movement to brand and spread across their channels. Use the inspirational aspect of getting fit, New Year’s resolutions, healthy living, or whichever angle you believe your customers would gravitate towards. Test out a few hashtags, find the one that resonates best, and brand your movement by announcing it on your blog and social channels.

#3: Experiment with Facebook Advertisements

I recently spoke with some local Boston-based paid search experts who all raved about the power ofFacebook advertising with the main conclusion that Facebooks ads are cheap and actually work. If you want to compete on Facebook today it’s pretty clear that you need to put some green bills on the table. Gone are the days when you could just post updates to your company’s wall and pray for likes. With that said costs can be easily controlled as there are several unique targeting methods giving you options to find your niche audience and not waste money on the click-happy internet addicts irrelevant to your business.

“Over the last two years, the social network has repeatedly tweaked the system to show the top 300 or so items that it predicts each person will want to read,” according to a recent article by the New York Times. “Facebook argues that people prefer to see videos, photos, news articles and updates from their friends and family more than other brands. So over time, posts by businesses have shown up less frequently.” Facebook continues to push for more advertising so if your business wants traction it needs to be advertising. With all of that said you still need to use caution and tread lightly if you’re a budget conscious advertiser because with more and more competition prices are likely to rise. I’d also highly recommend retargeting with platforms like AdRoll because with retargeting you show your ads to people that have already expressed interest in your brand by visiting your site. I often see retargeting ads on the side of my Facebook News scan (i.e. the image below showing ads for two sites which I recently visited).

 

#4: Host or Participate in Twitter Chats

Why would I want to go online to chat to a bunch of strangers? What respected business person would actually take time out of their day to participate in one of these cult-like chats? These were the initial thoughts which ran through by head when introduced to the concept of Twitter chats. My view drastically changed when WordStream founder, Larry Kim, raved about #PPCChat, encouraging me and my colleagues to participate as frequently as possible. So I took his advice and started participating in our industry related chats. I was surprised to find the experience to be very enjoyable; I even added #PPCChat as a recurring event in my calendar on Tuesday so that I wouldn’t forget to join in the live conversation. The chat gave me the ability to connect with others in the industry and also learn from those who have varying experiences from my own. I noticed an uptick in my personal followers and one week I was even featured as the top quote in the PPCChat write-up that’s published after every chat.

So why should your business get involved? Aside from personal branding, these chats can greatly benefit your business by giving you the ability to discover new leads, build brand authority, develop strong relationships with influencers in your industry, and further expose your brand. Host your own chat or partner with a big brand to co-host a chat; you’ll grow your follower base substantially if it’s promoted well. Explore the resources in this post to get an idea of which re-occurring chats take place in your industry.

#5: Suck Up to Influencers

This ties in nicely with the tip above because there are likely several industry influencers participating in your industry related chats. Not having any luck with chats? Luckily there are tons of other strategies you can use on social to get connected with big shots in your industry. The goal is to get these people to like you and like your brand, and I’m not talking about a Facebook like. I’m talking about a genuine emotional feeling of liking everything your business is about. Why? Once you get the in with the people that matter, your business will only continue to grow because their audience and authority with mesh with yours to cast an even wider net. Take the following four steps to socially connect with your influencers:

1. Make a thorough list of influencers and organize them into a spreadsheet with columns linking to each of their social profiles.
2. Favorite, like, comment, and re-share their content: Don’t favorite/like everything they post – that’s too obvious. You need to play somewhat hard to get to show that your likes are genuine rather than spammy. Try to like and favorite a few times per week and comment when you have something educational and valuable to say.
3. Tweet at them: This strategy works very well especially when asking industry related questions. They’ll be flattered that you thought of them and consider them to be a valuable resource. WordStream’s Erin Sagin did this for an article and received responses to almost everyone she contacted to help with her WordStream blog post.
4. Use the same hashtags: This way when they’re reviewing their hashtag feeds they’ll see your content, which will hopefully spark their interest.

#6: Share Trending Content

You should never use your social channels as a bragging platform. These channels aren’t to be solely self-promotional, this is boring and obnoxious. There needs to be a balance between marketing your brand and sharing stories and news from other valuable resources. If you kept seeing Instagram upon Instagram from your favorite clothing apparel store promoting solely their own clothing items you’d probably un-follow and avoid the store out of sheer frustration. Instead focus on a balance between sharing promotional content, interacting with your followers and influencers, and sharing other useful and entertaining content. The key word here is “other,” what is that? Follow these tips to easily determine what content is share-worthy:

• Look for viral videos on YouTube of hilarious children, adorable animals, and inspirational moments and re-share with your own unique spin.
• Scan the news for the highest covered media stories and add a unique perspective keeping relevant to your brand.
• Follow & use trending hashtags to add your voice to the larger conversations happening on social media. For example on Twitter you can see “Trends.”

Chose a trend that is somewhat relevant and join the conversation like the social commerce website, Polyvore did with the People’s Choice Awards in the tweet below.

• Use Buzzsumo to find content that resonates. I just started using this tool recently, but I’ve already added it to my bookmark bar and am completely addicted. It’s the easiest way to search related industry news sites and blogs, keywords, influencers, etc. to find the content with the highest number of social shares. Study the headlines that were shared and re-share those articles/headlines with your followers. This will continue the train of sharing, but also show your followers that your social posts are intriguing and follow-worthy 

Key Takeaways

As a quick recap stop pushing out the same old snooze-worthy content on social from 2014. Instead use 2015 as your chance to…

1: Build a community and inspire action. Your followers should be people that you interact with and maintain a witty, relatable, and fun relationship with on social media. Stop selling your soul to gain followers, instead look to grow engagement. Brainstorm creative ways to keep your followers intrigued by creating truly powerful social media campaigns that will spur your audience to participate.

2. Experiment with Facebook Ads to target the audience that’s relevant and retarget those who have already visited your site. This will gain you brand recognition and grow your business if done well. Don’t be afraid to allocate a portion of your budget to test it out – the results could be well worth it!

3. Join the conversion whether that be through Twitter chats or trending hashtags. Stay on top of your industry and contribute insightful thoughts and information to build your partnerships, connect with new leads, and expand your reach. Make your influencers like you by constantly flattering them; Like their content, retweet their updates, and comment on their posts.

4. Post quality content. Use Buzzsumo to find the trending and most popular stories in your industry and add these to the mix of your own posts to intrigue your audience and validate that your channels are follow-worthy. 

I’m curious…

Have you tried any of these techniques yet? If so, how did it go?

What changes do you plan to make to your social media strategy in 2015?

Which platforms do you find work best for you audience?

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Madonna: How the control queen lost her touch when media went social

Madonna’s pictures of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela don’t show she’s racist – just that she really doesn’t have much idea how social media works

• Madonna: ‘I did not say, “Hey, here’s my music, and it’s finished.” It was theft’
• 
•  Madonna: ‘Obviously there is a person, or a group of people, behind this that were essentially terrorising me.’ Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Madonna is the original queen of pop media. Naturally she reigned on the radio, but, as she made her name, her print and TV interviews were also incendiary. Then, as the MTV generation’s breakout star, she helped define the concept of the modern pop video.

Even when the internet was becoming popular she found a way to own it and have fun with it. Her 2000 webcast from the Brixton Academy in London – during which she namechecked the white hot online forum Popbitch – broke viewing records at a point when most fans were still on dialup. In 2003, when her American Life album was being shared on peer-to-peer networks, she uploaded a fake file asking pirates: “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Media training is a part of any sensible new popstar’s pre-launch fitness regime, but Madonna didn’t need it. She wrote the bloody book on it. 

Then about eight years ago, social media came along. For some time, Madonna was conspicuous by absence. Her reluctance to get involved was, in its own way, incredible. But one still wondered: how amazing would be if Madonna one day simply appeared on Twitter?

One day in 2012 she did just that. By the following year, her Instagram account was also in full flow. At times, her updates have been brilliant. One picture, from May 2013, came with the caption: “Cleaning up before the Met Ball”, and showed a fully glammed-up Madonna wielding a vacuum cleaner in her bathroom.

More recently, though, with a new album on the horizon, Madonna’s social accounts have become a hashtag-strewn, meme-littered jamboree of misfires through which the image Madonna spent three decades refining has begun to unravel. 

She called herself “ratchet” (a term for someone who is, as Urban Dictionary puts it, “out of hand, out of control”), but spelt it “ratchit”, just as she misspelled the name of Avicii, the young producer with whom she was working. These attempts to be down with the kids have instead hinted that, actually, at 56, she might be completely out of touch. One spoof account, @madonnafanfic, imagines Madonna’s daughter Lourdes constantly disconnecting the home internet in the hope of saving her mum’s career. That may not be too far from the truth: Madonna has admitted that her kids are effectively A&Ring the sonic direction of her new album.

All eyes were on Madonna just before Christmas when more than 20 demos for her next album, Rebel Heart, were leaked online. Most were works in progress; the release of Rebel Heart hadn’t even been announced. It was an unprecedented security breach for an artist of Madonna’s stature. But when she used social media to liken it all to rape and terrorism, she began to test even fans’ patience. 

Suddenly, the pop icon who, little more than a decade earlier, faced leaked music in a way that was funny, smart and aggressive, was uploading a picture of a broken iPod as “a symbol of my broken heart”. Madonna, pop’s most brilliant control freak, was no longer in control. Rather than asking, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” and windmilling her way into a fight, she was assuming the role of victim.

This weekend, things got even worse. After the Rebel Heart leaks, Madonna had begun flooding Instagram (and Twitter) with images of history’s “rebel hearts”. Echoing Madonna’s new album’s artwork, faces were doctored so they were covered in black straps. Marilyn Monroe, Jesus and Salvador Dali mingled with Homer Simpson, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, each figuratively (and graphically) roped into Madonna’s social media marketing campaign whether they liked it or not. Then, on Friday night, in one eight-minute burst, Madonna uploaded defaced images of Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley and Martin Luther King, and social media decided enough was enough.

Many were offended by the most recent trio of images: Madonna was racist, they said, and this was just another example of Madonna hijacking black culture to flog records. Cultural appropriation, a topic Madonna didn’t have to deal with during those heady days when normal people couldn’t make their voices heard, was suddenly an issue.

This ❤️#rebelheart had a dream! pic.twitter.com/PIwcwosS2G
— Madonna (@Madonna) January 2, 2015

Meanwhile, Twitter being Twitter, other users opted to tweet their own “rebel hearts”, including Deirdre Barlow and Lisa Scott-Lee from Steps, as well as latticed desserts (#rebeltart) and fish (#rebelcarp). Interestingly, even from many of those making accusations of racism, Madonna’s social media missives hadn’t prompted much anger. Instead, the response was a global, rather weary social media eyeroll.

Some Madonna fans are claiming this is nothing new, because Madonna has always been shocking. But once upon a time it was the people she shocked who looked stupid, and Madonna did what she did on purpose. She knew what she was doing with the lyrics of Papa Don’t Preach, with the video for Like a Prayer, with the Erotica era, with the Sex book. Accidentally blundering into cultural appropriation rows isn’t controlling the media, any more than accidentally shitting yourself in the queue at Tesco is displaying masterful bowel control.

Many of Madonna’s fans, who once had revelled in the star’s ability to make an older generation huff, tut and shake its collective head, have now turned into their own parents: they’re not angry with Madonna, just disappointed. And it is slightly heartbreaking that Madonna, an artist who made her name through an intuitive grasp of almost every major trend and zeitgeist fluctuation, is so crap at social media.

Still, at least the new music’s good. 

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Small businesses connecting on social media

                      

Within minutes of sharing a bright, colorful photograph of a freshly decorated champagne-flavored cupcake on Facebook, customers were lined out the door of Buttercups Cupcakes to get one or a dozen.

The bakery in Shreveport is using social media as its primary method of advertising and getting near instant results.

Small businesses such as Buttercups are opting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and online coupon vendors to advertise more frequently and for less money than ever before.

“The impact it has is amazing, and it’s free,” Buttercups owner Kim Hand said of her favorite marketing tools.

About 11,000 people are in touch with Buttercups on the three social networks, led by Hand, who before she started her business five years ago had never had much use for social media.

“An employee who was much younger than me had to show me how to use Facebook. We were so excited when we had 50 followers. Now it’s amazing the following we have,” Hand said.

Followers get updates daily, and they seem to appreciate the posts.

She only uses traditional advertising about once a quarter, and yet “business is great” due in large part to cultivating social media, Hand said.

Volume increases significantly year over year, and followers are opting in themselves and interacting.

Facebook is Buttercups’ venue to advertise a finished product, and Instagram is a behind-the-scenes look into the bakery kitchen where workers demonstrate finishing decorating touches through videos or photos.

Hand has figured out on her own that her followers would rather have different views of what’s going on at her bakery rather than being subjected to the same message on all platforms.

Bistro Byronz, locally owned in Shreveport, Mandeville and Baton Rouge, posts to Facebook several times a week — sharing specials, photographs of a packed house and coupon deals from Groupon and GoWaiter.com.

This Christmas someone behind Bistro Byronz the account jumped on the Elf on the Shelf bandwagon, pairing photo posts with short poems written by the elf himself: “Our famous bread pudding and heavenly hash. When it comes to desserts we’ve got quite a good stash. Save room if you dare for some Saturday glee. Because tonight every table will get one for free,” read a holiday post from the elf.

It’s impossible to know how that poem directed related to cash sales, but those Facebook posts garnered hundreds of likes.

“Social media is a huge part of our business,” said Shreveport manager Brandon Candler.

Groupon and GoWaiter work best for attracting new customers, Candler said. The offers are shared on Facebook.

“I can’t go a night without doing 10 or 12 Groupons,” he said. “It gets people in the door for us.”

Candler said social media is the way the business communicates directly with customers, providing them with attractive visuals and updating them on what’s new at Bistro locations.

The bistro’s latest post announces a second location in Baton Rouge and an opening date paired with a photograph of an inside view of the empty new restaurant. The post has about 400 likes.

Bistro Byronz uses some traditional advertising, but social media and coupons give the best returns, Candler said.

Rhino Coffee in Shreveport also has success with Instagram and Facebook. Will McGrew, the man behind the Rhino Coffee accounts, keeps an eye on the Rhino hashtag, #RhinoCoffee, a tag added to Facebook and Instagram posts that aggregates a list of other social media users who’ve contributed to a feed of Rhino specific updates and photographs.

“Under that we see a lot of in-store photos, people taking pictures of their stuff, what they buy in the store,” he said.

Using a hashtag, the café executed a contest that required students studying in the coffee shop’s dining areas to take selfies and tag them with #Rhinostudy.

The posts entered them into an ongoing contest to receive free drinks each week or a $50 gift card monthly.

“That was a huge success because it got people engaged in the product. It really put out name out there even more,” Candler said.

Buttercups Cupcakes again had a line out its front door and several doors down when the bakery announced on social media the first 50 customers in line on the business’s 5th anniversary would receive a free cupcake each month for a year.

Customers lined up at 8 a.m., but doors didn’t open for a couple of hours.

“The only way they would have known about that was Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We didn’t advertise it any other way,” Hand said.

Part of Buttercups’ success isn’t quantifiable through social media analytics — the same is said by Bistro Byronz and Rhino Coffee, which from time to time break for meaningful updates about philanthropy, their own employees or the “regulars.”

Small business owners are using the tools to build relationships.

“It’s a neat way to connect with your customers. A lot of the time I’m in the kitchen or in my office. I don’t get to see them everyday. As a business owner, it’s a great way for me to get to know them,” Hand said.

Hand said social media in small business is a necessity – especially when the upcoming generation of customers is spending their time on social networks.

“Every business, led by the young or old, needs to be on social media,” she said.

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Forget the selfie, it's time to master the mermaid hair flick: Social media is flooded with newest portrait trend

• The mermaid hair flick has taken over from the selfie
• Women across Australia are dipping their hair in the water and flicking it back to create a rainbow of water
• The mermaid society ran a competition for the best mermaid hair flick picture
• The photo had to showcase the water in a creative way
• the craze has swept through Australia

If you're still perfecting your best 'duck face' selfie then you may be behind the times, as a new trend of hair flicking is flooding social media.

In true Willow Smith fashion, girls are whipping their hair back and forth in an attempt to capture the ultimate mermaid hair flick. 

Captioning their photos with the hashtag #mermaidhairflick, women across Australia have started the bizzare trend, which sees them dipping their head in the water and quickly flicking their hair back behind them, creating a rainbow of water.

Kirra Innes won the mermaid hair flicking competition run by The Mermaid Society

The site asked their followers to post their best hair flicking picture and post it to Instagram. The picture was supposed to showcase the beauty of water

Women across Australia have started the bizzare trend, which sees them dipping their head in the water and quickly flicking their hair back behind them, creating a rainbow of water

The move manages to generate an impressive display of saltwater and makes for a pretty epic Instagram shot.

The Mermaid Society appear to have started the new craze, after asking women around Australia to post their best mermaid hair flick pictures to Instagram, showcasing the water as creatively as possible. 

The winner of the competition was Kirra Innes, who posted a breathtaking mermaid hair flick shot, showing Lake Wooloweyah glimmering in front of an orange sunset.  

The move manages to generate an impressive display of saltwater and makes for a pretty epic Instagram shot. This picture of @worldofclaire was taken at Whitehaven beach 

@karina1994 won second place in the Mermaid Society' hair flicking contest

This photo of @semplicemente_ash is a stunning display of a perfect mermaid hair flick

The Mermaid Society is dedicated to providing information, news and interviews for girls of the sea, including surfers and received hundreds of entries for the competition. 

Many other Instagram users have posted mermaid selfies to Instagram from Millaa Millaa Falls in Queensland.

The waterfall was famously used in the Herbal Essences advertisement, where the woman flicks her hair back in front of the waterfall.

It was also used in the Peter Andre video for Mysterious Girl. 

@bresby and her friend showcased their best hair flicks in this picture from Noosa

@racheliza_ proved that even girls with short hair can flick their hair like a mermaid

@lyssi_skye captioned her photo with #living #freeeeeintheseaaa at Freshie Beach

Kim Kardashian famously posted a video of her best mermaid hair flick to her social media account in April. 

The star can be seen dipping her hair in the water and whipping it back in slow motion, creating a wave of water in her trail. 

The trend seems to have finally caught on with girls all over the country emulating the famous 'it girl'.

This stunning backdrop of Millaa Millaa Falls made up the scene for @ljodgers mermaid hair flick photo

Kim Kardashian famously posted a video of her best mermaid hair flick to her social media account in April. 

The star can be seen dipping her hair in the water and whipping it back in slow motion, creating a wave of water in her trail. 

The trend seems to have finally caught on with girls all over the country emulating the famous 'it girl'.

@yasminhulin and her friend were backpacking in Cairns when they took this mermaid hair selfie at Millaa Millaa Falls

@lindseymcalister got the mermaid hair flick spot on in this photo at Millaa Millaa Falls

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The Mermaid Society -

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