By: Paige Strott
1. Teens don’t like Facebook, but they’re still logging in.
A survey of 4,000 teenagers was released this week detailing their social media usage. Forrester Research concluded that young people are still using Facebook abundantly.
Despite predictions that Facebook is loosing its strong position in the market, close to half of the teens surveyed said that they are on Facebook more than they were a year ago. The Huffington Post has asserted, “Teens can use things and hate them, too”.
They also claim that one of the reasons Facebook is still sustainable is because they offer too many services to become replaceable. There is a lot of merit to this statement; Facebook is a way to find contacts, share material, play games and keep in touch with friends.
Social media professionals will have to monitor public opinion about Facebook as well as the services that other websites offer to determine it’s sustainability. Read the Huffington Post’s coverage of this survey, here.
2. Scarred girl’s story to KFC being called into question.
In last week’s news round up, we included a heart-wrenching story about a three year-old being asked to leave a KFC because of her badly scarred face. This week, KFC has announced that after two investigations, they have found no evidence that this incident occurred.
After Victoria’s story went viral, KFC and members of the public donated over $135,000 for her medical bills and many doctors and nurses have been offering their services pro-bono.
Since then, KFC has been examining video surveillance and checking the orders from the KFC in Jackson, Mississippi where Victoria was allegedly asked to leave. After finding no one matching Victoria’s description on the surveillance footage and no order that correlates to what they supposedly ate, KFC is convinced that the incident did not occur.
It took key fact checking for KFC to discover that this PR nightmare may not have happened. This goes to show that doing research into crisis issues is essential. Read more on this story via Gawker.
3. New Social Media App, State.
There is a new social media app on the market; State calls itself the global opinion network. The app prides itself on displaying all users’ opinions equally. PR Daily writes, “As people post their opinions, the data from keywords generate a graph that maps out user sentiment, along with a keyword cloud showing the most common terms associated with the subject.”
State could become important for PR as well because of its ability to measure what the general public is saying about a brand, not just what key influencers think. PR firms that are thinking ahead should track the app’s growth to see if it has the potential to become a force on the market.
Take a look at more information on the app via PR Daily.
4. Consumers are on mobile more than ever, but are not shopping on their phones.
A recent study has shown that consumer’s mobile shopping behavior has not improved. Most are still weary and frustrated when trying to shop online.
The top three reasons why purchasers are hesitant to shop online are:
1. Can’t get a clear or large enough image of the product.
2. Product information cannot be easily viewed.
3. Hard to compare products.
Another concern is protecting credit-card information on a mobile device. Read more about the study on Entrepreneur.com.
5. Police are using Twitter to track terrorist activity.
Dataminr is a software company that scans through tweets for evidence on possible threats. The software flags suspicious tweets and sends real-time alerts to their customers.
One of the most important events where this precaution was used was at this year’s Boston Marathon in response to the bombing that occurred the year before.
This company shows how varying the uses of social media are. Everything from crafting ideas to protection can be supported by social media. It also proves that social media continues to change and evolve in ways that are difficult to predict. Read more here.
What pieces of PR news have you seen this week?
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