What Do Palin and Snooki Have in Common?

Today in my Twitter feed I scrolled across an article from AdAge which was retweeted and by @Socialmedia411 titled, "A Twitter Smackdown: Sarah Palin vs. Snooki." Being an advertising major and familiar with the two, I had to read it and see what AdAge had to say.

In a satirical manor, the article compared Palin and Snooki (whatever her real name is) based on Twitter popularity statistics. Since I follow both of them, I made a few mental notes of the facts and observations AdAge came up with.

First off, the two being compared to each other is absolutely absurd but entertaining nonetheless. Secondly, why Snooki is famous and prompting her as noteworthy as Palin is completely irrational.

The article discusses and compares @SarahPalinUSA versus @Sn00ki mentions and Palin wins by a landslide, however I've noticed that Palin does not tweet quite as often as Snooki but gives much more substance and mentions to political trending topics.

I almost wish I was not following Snooki because of her mindless and irrelevent tweets. "@Sn00ki: Lunch with my hunnie by the river :) sucha nice day out!! Eatin outside so I get my tan on," is just one of her pointless tweets which I feel defeats the purpose of twitter in a social-networking sense. I roll my eyes when I see tweets that do not offer any valid substance.

Palin on the other hand, although on a completely different level than Snooki on all accounts tweet things such as, "@SarahPalinUSA: Beautiful story, beautiful results - the Chilean miners' will to live is inspiration and encouragement for all mankind." These are the kind of things I like to see and read on my twitter feed, current, relevant and notable comments that can maybe spark topic in conversation.

The article also breaks down with a pie chart the markets which tweet about Palin and Sknooki the most. Both have New York as heavy tweeters, but interestingly enough the article points out Snooki is also heavily followed by Toronto residents. AdAge mentions the notion that males are more likely to tweet about Palin rather than Snooki. Probably because her depiction on the embarrassingly idolized MTV show, "The Jersey Shore," so men do not have a favorable outlook on her. This is probably why:

Viewer discretion advised.

Jersey Shore - MTV Shows

I think it is interesting how AdAge chose to pair the two in a sense of comparing their impact and popularity on twitter. Honestly and obviously Palin is a much more credible icon to follow and with a significant fan base, although Snooki has more twitter followers. Though I do not understand how she does not have fewer because of her completely obnoxious nonsense. No sooner do I type that statement and her tweet pops up in the corner of my TweetDeck.

Here is the AdAge article:

http://bit.ly/bQh2VM

Go Back Gap!

Gap Reverts to Original Logo After Social Media Backlash

This past week I noticed on my Twitter feed headlines stating Gap has received some serious backlash over their new and improved logo. Although I did not read the full article at the time, I went back to see what the negative hype was about.

This morning the situation was mentioned in my media planning class; I felt so out of the loop since I skipped over the tweet last weekend and didn't have much to contribute to the discussion.

But now that I'm up to speed, the article I found from Mashable.com briefly discussed the issue and response from the Gap's Facebook fan page. This is a perfect example of customer/business relations via social media tools.

In order for businesses and organizations to maintain a transparent relationship with consumers, active responses and feedback is key. Social networking and review Websites easily facilitate these relationships and allow companies to respond quickly to negative feedback, much like what happened with the Gap.

Apparently the Gap tried to revamp their bland yet timeless logo by trying to modernize the blue box's effect. After the decision had been made, they shared their new logo on its Facebook page and instantly received negative feedback and thousands of tweets of consumers expressing their attitudes toward it.

Gap immediately responded and announced they were changing the logo back to the original. According to Mashable.com, the Gap said,"Ok. We’ve heard loud and clear that you don’t like the new logo. We’ve learned a lot from the feedback."

The Gap also stressed the importance of brand/customer relation and reassured the big blue box will be back. Clearly, the Gap fan base was not thrilled about the logo change but I personally was shocked to realize how many people really cared about the Gap logo looks.

If you've ever shopped in the Gap, they sell decent quality clothing items and staple articles, however their logo is no where to be found actually on the articles. If it was a brand such as Polo Ralph Lauren who drastically altered their logo, I feel that would be a different story given the label-social status behind it. But the Gap? Who even hardly notices the store?

"The Social Network"

Directed by David Fincher, the biggest blockbuster hit of the fall, "The Social Network" grossed $22.5 million dollars at the Box Office nearly doubling other big hit movies such as "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."

Why exactly was this movie which was so subtly promoted yet tantalizing to watch such a success? Similar to that of Facebook, how has no one thought of producing an entire two-hour movie portraying the creator of Facebook to which we all know and love?

Whether or not you appreciate the advances Facebook has to offer globally, the movie without a doubt is purely entertaining and definitely worth seeing in theaters. But the most interesting thing to me was not about trial and errors of creating Facebook, but how the concept was created according to this movie.

Mark Zuckerberg in the opening scene is portrayed as a classic jerk to his girlfriend in a pub setting, which he soon realizes she dumps him. From there he went straight to his computer to blog about her and how terrible of a person she is.

While viewing this scene of drunken and raging blogging about Mark's personal life, it really made me think of how "safe" that action would be. After all of the discussion in class about privacy and information posted online that may fall into the wrong hands made me question what would happen if I posted every interesting, unusual, note-worthy encounter I have experienced?

Of course I reveal to my trusted friends the crazy things that happen over the weekend or what I think about a certain person, but I feel as though I would never post anything that could potentially offend anybody like how Mark did to his former girlfriend. Clearly he is aware that he has followers, because his best friend knew about the break up before the two had even spoken.

Diverting from blogging consequences, the next portion of the movie that intrigued me was the questionable character of Sean Parker played by Justin Timberlake. Once the viral Facebook emails began to circulate among other Ivy League college campuses, Sean Parker, the founder of Napster immediately wanted to meet and advise Zuckerberg.

Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, was extremely hesitant and wary of Parker getting his hands too deep into the Facebook's development because of his tarnished name and history. Saverin was constantly worried about the business moves while Zuckerberg was more concerned with the site's image.

Needless to say, Parker seemingly played the PR role during the growth of Facebook in the movie. He took Zuckerberg under his wing for expansion, but did get Facebook employees in trouble with the law from petty drug use.

Next came the swarm of legal action by others. Harvard students and Zuckerberg's best friend and co-founder pressed charges against Zuckerberg for intellectual property theft. But in the movie Zuckerberg said, "if you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would've invented Facebook."