Taylor Hinkle, Author at One Social Media

The Biggest Social Media Mess-Ups of the 2012 Olympics

August 1, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

London 2012 has recently been referred to as the “first social media Olympics” due to the fact that social media is 100 times bigger than it was in 2008 and everybody and their dog is posting, liking, Tweeting, and/or blogging about its every moment.

This should be a good thing, and for the most part it has been. Key words there, “for the most part”. You see, a handful of people have managed to do some major damage (mostly to themselves) and spark a lot of controversy via social media. As we all know, controversy spreads like wildfire on social media and once a Tweet is out there… it’s out there.

Here is our list of some of the biggest screw-ups so far in London 2012:

Independent journalist Guy Adams tweeted his outrage about NBC coverage of the Olympics and found his Twitter account suspended. In the Tweet he included an NBC executive’s email address. (Update: Twitter later reactivated his account and apologized.)

A 17-year-old arrested after malicious tweets were sent to Olympic diver Tom Daley has been given an official warning by Dorset Police. His Tweets were ridiculously awful, including one that accused Daley of letting down his father, who died in 2011 from brain cancer.

Athlete Paraskevi Papachristou has been expelled from Greece’s Olympic team for posting an offensive comment about African immigrants on Twitter.

Swiss footballer sent home from Olympics in disgrace for calling South Koreans ‘mongoloids’ on Twitter and saying they ‘can go burn’ after 2-1 defeat.

On July 28, Solo, the goalkeeper of the United States women’s soccer team, unleashed her fury through a series of tweets directed at Chastain, because of comments the former athlete made on TV.

In a tweet that was on his account for more than 24 hours — but has since been deleted — The Denver Post‘s John Henderson tweeted, “That was fun. First time I’ve gotten horny covering the Olympics. Thank you!”… He sent the tweet while writing about teenage swimmers.

What were these people thinking???

That’s all for now. Don’t worry, I’m sure there will be LOTS more by the time London 2012 is over.

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

How to Figure Out Which Social Networks are Right for Your Business

July 11, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

The world of social media is a little crazy these days. What started as a handful of social media platforms has rapidly exploded into hundreds. For a business just testing the waters and trying to figure out which platforms to use and how to use them, it can seem like a daunting task.

Think about it; For a business attempting to finally get involved in social media they have to:

Decide who is going to manage and be responsible for their social media efforts
Set-up a blog (this is not optional)
Figure out which platforms they need to be involved in based on who their audience is
Figure out how to use each platform
Set-up accounts properly on all of those platforms
Create designs where necessary for each platform
Integrate the platforms where necessary
Develop a posting strategy for each platform
Monitor each platform on a daily basis (in most cases)
Continually make updates on each platform

Getting your business on social media is not just something you wake up and decide to do. It’s something that takes a lot of thought and a lot of strategic thinking before you ever make a single post.

The main thing to keep in mind is that just because there are a ton of social media sites and services out there, doesn’t mean your business needs to be involved in all of them. If you are just getting started, you should focus on the big ones like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Google +. Which platforms you will focus the majority of your efforts on depends on who your audience is, what your business has to offer, and what your goals of your social media efforts are. If YouTube doesn’t make sense for your business, don’t spend your time on YouTube.

The infographic below will help you get a better understanding of the major social media platforms and might even give you some ideas of how you can use them for your business.

For even more helpful advice, click on the image below:

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: Infographics, Social Media, Social Media Strategies, Social Media Tips Tagged With: How to Figure Out Which Social Networks are Right for Your Business, how to get my business on social media, how to get my business started on social media, how to get started on social media, social media for business, which social media sites should i use

Clean Up Your F****** Facebook Profile!

April 11, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

My coworker Rob recently gave a presentation at a local networking event for New View (West Des Moines Chamber Young Professionals) about how to build your personal brand on social media. This is an extremely important topic for young professionals and especially for recent college graduates. Part of the presentation focused on what not to do on social media sites and how the status updates/photos/rants etc. you are posting on social media can affect whether you get a job or not.

It reminded me of… let’s call her “Sarah”.

One day when I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed (as I do far too often than I care to admit), I noticed an update from Sarah. I don’t know Sarah, in fact I don’t think I’ve even met her in person. Why am I friends with her on Facebook? Because she sent me a friend request and after I thought to myself “Who the heck is Sarah?”, I noticed that we had a few friends in common and I wanted to spare myself of that awkward moment when you deny a friend request and then see that person… in person.

Anyways, her status update looked a little something like this (minus the * symbols):

I thought to myself “Well isn’t that just lovely”.

I proceeded to click on her profile to find out if there were any other witty and insightful status updates that could add some value to my life. I’m not sure what Sarah is like in real life, but her Facebook wall portrays her as one of the most negative, foul-mouthed, whiniest people to walk the Earth. There should definitely be something like this that pops up before you are allowed to view her wall:

I was curious, so I checked to see if she had her privacy settings set so that only friends could view her wall. Nope, it was set to public, meaning anyone could view her Facebook profile and everything on it. Big surprise there.

I also Googled her name to see what showed up first. It was her Facebook profile. No way! (<— sarcasm). The #1 result out of hundreds of thousands of search results was her Facebook profile, and when you clicked the link it brought you straight to her wall.

I couldn’t help myself, so I commented on her status update about not being able to get a job. Something along the lines of:

“I have a theory on why you might be having trouble getting a job. 1) Your Facebook wall is littered with F-bomb status updates, which is fine I guess, but 2) Your Facebook profile is set to public, meaning anyone can see your profile, even if they aren’t friends with you, and 3) When you Google your name your Facebook profile is the first thing that shows up. The people that are contemplating hiring you might be, and probably are, Googling your name to find out as much as they can about you. Just letting you know.”

She deleted my comment and made an immediate status update of “I wish people would just mind their own f****** business”…. Nice.

Moral of the story: Be aware of what’s out there about you on social media sites. Before you graduate from college and start applying for jobs, do some cleanup on your Facebook profile. Delete or “hide” the pictures of you and your friends beer bonging or streaking or whatever you and your friends do that’s less than appropriate. Delete the status updates with bad language. If you want to be viewed as a professional and as an adult, keep it professional.

A good way to determine whether something is appropriate or not for Facebook or Twitter would be to ask yourself:

“Would I be OK with my grandma reading/seeing this?”

P.S. – If you have never Googled your own name, take a minute to do it now.

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: Facebook Timeline, Online Reputation Tagged With: facebook, facebook best practices, facebook privacy, facebook profiles, facebook tips, how to be professional on facebook, online reputation, reputation management, what not to do on facebook

Ready or Not, Facebook Timeline for Pages is Coming Next Week

March 20, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle 1 Comment

Facebook is notorious for making updates that send the vast majority of its users into a panic. It’s not that they are bad updates, it just seems that most people hate change and will fight it for as long as they can. That’s why Facebook often puts a date on when the updates will be made for you, whether you like it or not.

The date for Facebook Timeline for pages is March 30, 2012.

That means if you procrastinate and don’t get your page ready, it might look a little something like this when you stroll into the office on Monday morning:

Before you start trying to get your page converted, here’s what you need to know and understand about Timeline for pages:

1. Cover images are replacing landing pages – This is a huge change. This means that businesses can no longer set their pages up to have non-fans land on a custom landing page that tells them why they should “like” the page (also known as “fan-gating”). No biggie, you can just put that type of info right on the cover image… right? Wrong (see #2). The nice thing about the new cover images is that it gives a lot more space to get creative (815 x 315 px). Here’s an example of what the new cover images look like:

2. Cover images have strict guidelines – Facebook has made it pretty obvious that they don’t want businesses blatantly promoting anymore on their site (they want them to pay for advertising instead). In my opinion this is a good thing and will help weed-out some of the spammy business pages. Here’s a snapshot of some of the restrictions:
3. Your applications will still exist, you just have to prioritize them – You are allowed to have up to 12 custom applications, four of which will show up as featured applications just below your cover image. We came across this company that has a good way of making their applications stand out with the new layout:

4. Take advantage of the new “Milestones” feature - This gives you the ability to go back and showcase different milestones of achievements your business has had (first hire, first dollar of profit, various levels of growth, etc.).

5. Personal profiles can now message business pages – With the new messaging feature, profiles can now private message a Facebook page. A page cannot initiate a conversation or message with someone, they can only respond to messages initiated by a profile.

Our suggestion would be to get started on optimizing your new page ASAP. Facebook gives you the opportunity to preview your page prior to publishing. This allows you to customize it and get it ready prior to taking it live. Take advantage of that opportunity.

Good luck!

*Click here for the latest revision of Facebook’s terms for Pages.

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: facebook, Facebook Timeline Tagged With: facebook for pages, facebook for timeline help, facebook timeline, facebook timeline help, facebook tips, facebook tips for business pages, facebook tips for pages, how to prepare for facebook timeline, how to set up facebook for timeline, new facebook timeline, social media tips

5 Simple Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Channel

February 27, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

Being a Social Media Project Manager can be downright stressful! Let’s be honest, there’s A LOT to try to stay on top of, both for our clients and for our own company. It seems like there is a new social media platform, a new analytical tool, a new social media something popping up every week. As if that isn’t enough to try to keep on top of, it seems like the existing platforms are updating their own user interface just as often.

Although this can be stressful, it’s also the thing that draws us to this profession. No two work days are ever the same. We are constantly learning, relearning, studying, and evolving with the social media world.

Realizing this fact made me think:

“No wonder companies are having such a hard time keeping up.”

A handful of updates to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn go unnoticed by the general public, and major updates are typically slowly rolled out over the span of months to ease users into the changes.

With that being said, I have noticed a large number of YouTube channels that have been upgraded to the new channel layout (nicknamed Cosmic Panda) that look just plain awful. I’m not sure if people/companies upgraded to the new layout and then never got around to optimizing it or whether they just got confused and blacked out while in the process.

Either way, it inspired us to create this quick guide for how to optimize your new YouTube channel and get you back up to speed:

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: YouTube Tagged With: how to optimize a youtube channel, how to optimize my youtube channel, new youtube layout, social media tips, ways to optimize a youtube channel, ways to optimize my youtube channel, youtube tips

Clean Up Your F****** Facebook Profile!

Taylor Hinkle

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What were these people thinking???

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Before you start trying to get your page converted, here’s what you need to know and understand about Timeline for pages:

“No wonder companies are having such a hard time keeping up.”

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