Pamela Jenkins

Mrs Intiwiwat

English 114-05

April 21, 2018

Social Media Report

Social media has changed our world, in how we act, react, think about all the components

that make up life and who we will or won’t do business with on any given day. I will discuss 5 of

these in this paper, what they are used for and how these applications can affect a business.

Where would we be without Facebook? We have made Mark Zuckerberg a very rich, young

man. It is the number 1 Social Media Application in the world, with over 2 billion members.

That is almost 1/3 of the population of the Earth! Facebook allows businesses, and people, to

connect instantly and share information via written word, video and pictures. They now cater to

businesses by having ads on their site for them to advertise. These ads come up either on the side

of a user’s homepage or in between posts that are being read. Facebook users can also search for

a business’s page. The business application is easy to manage and has an incredible number of

tools to choose from including but not limited to; building your app, marketing your business and

targeting certain groups of people. This has helped numerous businesses reach more people than

ever before, especially small businesses (Nations).

Instagram is owned by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. Instagram allows users to share

pictures, videos up to 60 seconds and connect to other people or businesses. More than 800

million people use Instagram monthly, 500 million of those are active every day and over 80% of
Instagram accounts follow a business (Aslam). Businesses can use Instagram to advertise via

commenting on someone else’s post or insert their ad onto someone’s home page, like Facebook

(Dawley).

YouTube was created in 2005 and is very popular with every day citizens and even

businesses. It allows users to upload videos ranging from funny animals and children, to

tutorials, movie trailers and everything in between (Collins). YouTube usage helped create the

phrase “that video has gone viral”, meaning when a video has become enormously popular. You

can find many businesses, large and small, using YouTube to showcase their products or

services.

Twitter was created in 2006 and has over 310 million users. This Social Media platform

allows users to post mini blogs/rants/personal updates in 140 characters or less. Twitter uses can

use a hashtag, which was originally called a pound sign, #, and put words behind it creating a

way for users to group information together (Gil). For instance, #orangeface might come up with

a long list of negative tweets about Donald Trump or #Bojanglebiscuits would bring you to

Tweets about the company Bojangles and their amazing biscuits. Companies that use the # with

their name and/or product name can get great advertising this way.

Snapchat was created in 2011 and as of May 2017 had 166 million daily users (Betters). With

Snapchat you can share videos, pictures or live chats and one of the most unique features is the

ability to alter your picture. You can swap faces with someone else in the picture or add different

things (hats, hair, horns, noses, etc.) to yourself in your picture. A business can advertise on the

app and use features called Filters or Lenses to create one of a kind mobile ads.
 With all these applications, “apps”, businesses can target and reach millions of users. With so

many people using computers and or cell phones it is no surprise that companies have started

using Social Media to advertise and target the users of these apps. This has been especially

useful for small businesses but also applies to larger companies. No doubt this has helped make

them millions of dollars in revenue. However, the same way these companies reach millions of

people and are able to turn a profit form their ads, it can and does have a downside. For instance,

DiGiorno pizza made a blunder when they tried to play off the hashtag #WHYISTAYED

(Economist). The hashtag was about why women stayed in abusive relationships. DiGiorno did

not know this and said “They stayed for the pizza. Another company, Dove, created a huge

backlash in 2017 when they showed a black woman taking off her shirt and becoming a white

woman (Jr) . And yet another extreme blunder was made by American Apparel in 2014. A social

media reporter for American Apparel used Tumblr to repost a picture of the Space Shuttle

Challenger disaster and used the tags Smoke and Clouds. This reporter, American Apparel said,

was born after the disaster and did not realize the picture was of that faithful day. These

examples, and the backlash that ensued, show how easily social media can hurt a business if they

are not careful with the images or words they post. Therefore, most companies have someone

that is in charge of their social media accounts, to help stop these mistakes before they happen…

but it still does.

 Citations

“A Brand New Game.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 27 Aug. 2015,

www.economist.com/news/business/21662543-people-spend-more-time-social-media-

advertisers-are-following-them-brand-new-game.

"A Brand New Game." Economist, Aug, 2015, pp. 51-52. SIRS Issues

Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Aslam, Salam. “Instagram by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun

Facts.” Omnicore, 1 Jan. 2018, www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/

Betters, Elyse. “What Is Snapchat, How Does It Work and What Is It Used for?” Pocket-

Lint, 8 Feb. 2018, www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/snapchat/131313-what-is-snapchat-

how-does-it-work-and-what-is-it-used-for.

Collins, Jerri. “What Is YouTube? How Do I Use It?” Lifewire, 27 June 2017,

www.lifewire.com/youtube-101-3481847

Dawley, Sarah. “How to Use Instagram for Business: A Complete Guide for

Marketers.” Hootsuite, 30 Jan. 2018, blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-use-instagram-for-

business/.
Gil, Paul. “What Exactly Is 'Twitter'? What Is 'Tweeting'?” Lifewire, 5 Feb. 2018,

www.lifewire.com/what-exactly-is-twitter-2483331.

Nations, Daniel. “What Is Facebook.” Lifewire, 2 Feb. 2018, www.lifewire.com/what-is-

facebook-3486391.

Wootson, Cleve R. “A Dove Ad Showed a Black Woman Turning Herself White. The

Backlash Is Growing.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Oct. 2017,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/10/08/dove-ad-that-shows-a-black-

woman-turning-herself-white-sparks-consumer-

backlash/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0da19bba2c8a.