Tumblr

Hello All –

Just a quick announcement that I’ve been testing out a new blog over on Tumblr. I’m still a big fan of the WordPress dashboard and posting capabilities, but Tumblr has my heart in terms of ease of re-blogging and direct posts from Instagram, which I’m currently obsessed with (tech-victim? most likely).

Anyway, you can check out what I’m currently saying over on my Tumblr blog: media-minded.tumblr.com

Until I return…farewell!

Social Media Propaganda

This artist’s work combines two of my favorite things, design and social media. Aaron Wood creates World War style propaganda posters for social media wars. Pretty clever and convincing.

Data Art

As I’m sure you can tell by now,  I’m a fan of the infographic. And these visually stunning data visualizations take the infographic to a whole new level – one could say,  a more artistic one. These graphics were compiled by Wired Editor Thomas Goetz using various artists to help in the project. The results are an online exhibition of fancy infographics and animations depicting online behavior. Goetz sums up the idea best,

“Basically, I wanted to use the digital medium of the web to show data visualization – to show it in a new and robust way,” he says. “I landed on showing how digitalized people’s lives are, through Skype, tweets and Facebook – the part of our lives we do online.”

And, it’s true. We tend to forget that online activities have a history to them. Even if we consistently clear our cache, the analytics behind our behaviors remains – making digital communications fascinatingly traceable and visualized.

The images and animations are derived from data centering on 3 themes: Wikipedia as a crowd-sourced network; how Twitter’s platform of followers, interactions and re-tweeting ranks its various users; and the “impact and fluidity of an online financial social network” – read more about it here.

Social Media is Here to Stay

Corporations, big businesses, small businesses, start-ups, freelancers – anyone trying to make a buck – take note: social media to promote and brand your business is here to stay and its importance is only going to grow. Therefore, it is crucial to spend time shaping your social media image to match that of your brand. And, most of you agree, so get busy tweeting and posting! This infographic from Mashable provides some insight:

Social Media Brand Infographic

Facebook > LinkedIn

For all those hunting for a job out there, apparently when it comes to seeking out a potential candidate, recruiters prefer Facebook over LinkedIn – especially when it comes to recent college graduates. Mashable spoke with research lab, Potentialpark about their findings from a survey of 30,000 students and recent grads.

Not surprisingly, the job seekers weren’t too keen on having employers check them out on Facebook. However, recruiters feel that these hopeful young professionals are not only more active and engaging on Facebook than LinkedIn, but Facebook is better for branding, it’s free, and it’s more open.

While I agree with this logic, I don’t think this holds true for a large majority of the population – in practice. Knowing that LinkedIn is meant for employment networking, I am sure to appropriately and relevantly represent myself for this purpose. Furthermore, my Facebook profile doesn’t contain any of my design work or past employment history…and I don’t want it to. Because while I may want recruiters to see this information, I don’t particularly want some rando I went to high school with to see it. The bottom line is Facebook provides an incomplete history – much to Zuckerberg’s and recruiters dismay.

Facebook’s Marketing Relationship

Check on this informative article on what Facebook’s changes mean for marketers. Now that Facebook users have more control over what they see in their news feeds, marketers will need to encourage even more interactivity and sharing. No longer will marketers need consumers to just “Like” them, but they will need to shape their brand to fit into Facebook users’ lives and profiles. An advertisement will now be a part of someone’s story online. Marketing strategies for Facebook are turning our lives into increasingly detailed product placements. To sum it up:

…advertisers [need] to come up with compelling content and integrate themselves further into consumers’ lives.

…Jenna Lebel,managing director of strategy at Likeable Media, says the “Like” is “a little less relevant now,” and that marketers will have to work harder to earn their place in news feeds. “Your content is going to need to be absolutely amazing,” she says.

Yet another reason why effective art, design, and narrative is crucial when it comes to branding. Being boring just won’t do!

Via Mashable.

Social Media INFOGRAPHIC

Via Mashable