The big phrase right now seems to be “Fake News.” But the big follow-up question is, how do you tell when it’s actually fake? How does someone become a responsible media consumer?
Well a great tool to help everyone out comes from the Newseum, the official museum of news with archives going back decades into the printed form. Their educational arm, NewseumED, has created a poster called “E.S.C.A.P.E. News Junk.” Check it out below.
Color affects so much in our daily lives and most people don’t even realize it. Why are so many fast food restaurants yellow? Why do hospitals like blue? Get these answered with this infographic released by Skilled.
Don’t let color be the reason your graphics and logos fail to convey the right message.
As we all well know, your words and actions on social media can easily lead to your downfall. It can lead to the end of relationships, careers and entire businesses. Never forget that the internet is forever.
Because of this, the Office of Government Ethics has issued a Standard of Conduct guide for social media for government employees. This new guide does not prevent involvement in social media, but it does give restrictions. Continue reading
Just wanted to share a link to a great article from Social Media Club regarding personal branding. It starts off as a sequel to another post about convincing people to join Twitter. Once someone joins, there’s that feeling of “now what?” This explains what comes next. Enjoy.
Recently HubSpot shared some free infographics and I thought I would pass them along to you. According to the article, publishing with infographics increases traffic to your site by up to 12%.
Not everybody has the time or the talent to make some knockout graphics for their published work though, which is why these are so handy. Just go to the website and add your info to download them.
History loves to keep track of Presidential firsts. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to make a radio broadcast. First president to appear on black & white television? FDR of course. And Obama had the honor of giving the first presidential Tweet in 2010, but on the @redcross instead of his own account.
This week another media first occurred when Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced his bid for president via video on his Twitter account. His message also made him the first person to throw their hat into the ring for the 2016 Presidential Election.
The move to jump ahead of the rest of the pack and get his name out there via social media has sparked a positive consensus in the mainstream media. On the other hand, there have also already been some actions that have been considered missteps by his campaign.
For instance, the Senator failed to secure tedcruz.com. Instead it belongs to another Ted Cruz who uses it to simply post this message: 
The other point of contention seems to be that some people don’t like Cruz’s logo. The intention seems to be some sort of flame or torch superimposed with the American flag. Unfortunately the end result has inspired opinions ranging from a burning upside-down flag to an American version of the Al Jazeera logo.
I’m sure that as election season proceeds ad nauseam for months on end, we will see many presidential media firsts. We will also see any number of manufactured scandals and conflicts among the candidates as they continue to jump into the race. No doubt the media, both new and traditional, will be right there with them, tweeting and posting every word and photo. For the next eighteen months.
Just ran across something called Odrive. If you’re anything like me, you have multiple storage devices, not to mention all the online accounts. I haven’t tried this yet, but it looks interesting. Plus it’s still in beta testing so everything is free. At some point there will be paid features.
According to TechCrunch:
Odrive currently integrates with Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Gmail, and Microsoft OneDrive. Some of those services, including Google Drive and Dropbox, allow two-way sync, so you can update files and save new ones directly from odrive.
On February 26th the five member board of the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of net neutrality. Internet service providers will be considered carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which regulates services as public utilities. This ruling will prevent internet traffic from being prioritized based on monetary payment. Continue reading
Facebook has just come up with a new status for your account, deceased. Apparently you can appoint a “legacy contact” person to have access to your account upon your death so they can update your status and turn it into a memorial page. There are limits however. For instance the executor of your account will not have access to any of your messages.
Want a how to? Go check out Lifehacker where they break it down for you step by step.
Wondering which social media platform is going to win the big game on Sunday? Look no further. Fluent did the work for you, surveying over 5,000 people to see how they would be using social media during the Superbowl. Facebook won by a landslide with 44.3%. Twitter barely racked up 18%. Check out the rest of the survey here.
New Media Monster 