#corporate social media

[busstop]

Via Currys (they have a v funny Instagram feed - who knew?)

[eid100-sathuspeaks]

Online Brand Presence - The Power of Online Netiquette - EID100 Week 1

Social media etiquette is essential for brands, as a single misstep can drastically alter public perception. Burger King, a global fast-food chain, disregarded rule 2 of online netiquette: "Be aware and consistent with your online voice. Know what your message is and stay on message." Burger King UK tweeted, "Women belong in the kitchen," which led to widespread outrage. Women have faced societal stigma for centuries, and this tweet reinforced harmful stereotypes.

As a major brand, Burger King should have ensured that its posts were reviewed to avoid such missteps. The tweet failed to align with the brand’s intended message, which became evident when Burger King UK posted a follow-up explaining the tweet’s meaning. Poor netiquette like this can severely damage a brand's image. Social media posts need to be clear and unambiguous to prevent misunderstandings. Instead of posting "Women belong in the kitchen," the brand could have said, "Where are all the women chefs? Only 20% of chefs are women, and that needs to change." This would not only avoid controversy but also spread a positive, empowering message.

In contrast, BooHoo, a fashion brand, shows a strong grasp of social media dynamics. BooHoo posts frequently, engaging consistently with customers while following rule 3 of netiquette: "There’s a fine line between engaging people and annoying them. Join conversations using online tools, but don’t spam them with constant updates about your product or service." Instead of solely promoting products, BooHoo shares humorous tweets that resonate with followers, creating a personal and relatable brand identity. This approach keeps customers engaged without overwhelming them with product promotions.

In today’s digital world, social media branding plays a crucial role in a company’s success. Missteps like Burger King’s can cause significant damage to a brand’s reputation, while a thoughtful, engaging strategy like BooHoo’s can strengthen a brand’s connection with its audience. Social media posts should be crafted carefully to avoid misunderstandings and foster positive engagement, as poor online etiquette can have lasting consequences.

Works Cited

Thompson, J. (2023). Brand fails on social media: Examples & best practices. business.com. https://www.business.com/articles/social-media-brand-fails/#top-of-page-anchor

X.com. X (formerly Twitter). (n.d.-a). https://x.com/boohoo

X.com. X (formerly Twitter). (n.d.-b). https://x.com/BurgerKingUK/status/1369036021925638154?lang=en

[thymewayster]

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

John Bull @garius

One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone. So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1

So: what's a thermocline?

Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there's a point where it gets super-cold.

That suddenly is important. There's reasons for it (Science!) but it's just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the "Thermocline of Truth" which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.

But I digress. The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I've worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly... nope. And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They'll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.

And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them. Often it's not even to "new" competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it's just a sudden big slide. So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it's because they breached the Trust Thermocline.

I ask them if they'd been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid" Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?

Again: "yes, but not much."

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid." "And the year before?"

"Yes but not much. And everyone still paid."

Well, you get the idea. And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.

And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.

Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that. But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it. At this point, I normally get asked something like:

"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"

And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.

Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.

[greenteacryptid]

I don't like corporate social media accounts that try to be all silly and friendly like they think they can hide that every single thing they do online is an ad

Their silliness has an agenda

[quotesfromall]

marketing techniques, a way of pushing an emotion, or sense of desire onto us. It makes us want to be the person we’re not, and it makes us the people we are.

Pippa Eason, I love Instagram

[lordnot]

Finally containing Electro's power to ensure no Corporate Tumblrs get through my blocklist:

[starlightseraph]

@netflix @netflix @netflix

i’m so fucking done like what the fuck fuck fucking fuck. i was mad about 1899, because dark was so good and i wanted more from the creators. i was saddened by i am not ok with this, because i loved the characters and wanted to finish the story. i was devastated by the oa, because it was such a beautiful show and i needed to know what happened next.

but this is too fucking much. GUYS. the sandman universe is going, it’s getting more episodes and expanding. dbd made it to the top 3, that alone should automatically get it renewed. dbd is honestly one of my absolute favourite shows of all time. it’s funny and complex and has some of the best queer rep ever, it deals with important themes and has loveable characters and a beautifully realised world.

PLEASE, i beg of anyone who sees this, whether they’re a fan of dbd or not, to BLAST netflix in any way you can. tag them, message them, write to them en masse. like i’m so serious. literally write a letter by hand or print it out, and physically send it to netflix headquarters.

fucking do it, please. we cannot lose this lovely and beautiful and witty show. maybe, though the chances are slim and there are probably legal challenges, it can be picked up again by max, which was what originally produced the show anyways.

@netflix @netflix @netflix

[creelarke]

Remember when all social media platforms were actually free because their sole purpose was for people to connect and post/talk about their interests?

YouTube without YouTube premium

Twitter without Elon Musk bullshit and X premium

Tumblr without Tumblr premium

Instagram without paid subscriptions and loads of ads

Good time

[nando161mando]

U.S. corporate media is struggling…the kids have figured it out

[st4rstudent]

they then started a thread of 50 posts just arguing back and forth

[kp777]

By Thom Hartmann

Common Dreams

Nov. 16, 2023

What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.

Why did NBC’s Kristen Welker use an incomplete frame for her question about Social Security at last week’s GOP debate, and why didn’t Lester Holt or anybody else correct her?

Here’s her question:

KRISTEN WELKER: “Americans could see their Social Security benefits drastically cut in the next decade because the program is running out of money. Former President Trump has said quote, ‘Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements.’ Governor Christie, first to you, you have proposed raising the retirement age for younger Americans. What would that age be specifically, and would you consider making any other reforms to Social Security?”

The simple reality is that if a person earns $160,200 a year or less, they pay a 6.2% tax on all of their income. In other words, a person making exactly $160,200 pays $9,932.40 (6.2%) in Social Security taxes.

If you earn $12,000 a year, $56,000 a year, $98,000 a year, or anything under $160,200 a year, you also pay 6.2 cents of tax toward Social Security on every single dollar you earn. If you made $10,000 last year, you pay $620 in Social Security taxes: 6.2 percent. Like the old saying about death and taxes, you can’t avoid it.

BUT those people who make over $160,200 a year pay absolutely nothing — no tax whatsoever — to fund Social Security on every dollar they earn over that amount. After Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos pay their $9,932.40 in Social Security taxes on that first $160,200 they took home on the first day of January, every other dollar they take home for the rest of the year is completely Social Security tax-free.

If somebody makes $1,602,000, for example, it would seem fair that, like every other American, they’d pay the same 6.2% ($99,324) in Social Security taxes. But, no: they only pay the $9,932.40 and after that they get to ride tax-free.

If somebody earned $16,020,000 it would seem fair that they’d pay the same 6.2% to support Social Security as 96 percent of Americans do, but no. Instead of paying $1,004,400 in taxes, they only pay $9,932.40.

Hedge fund guys who make a billion a year — yes, there are several of them — can certainly afford to pay 6.2% to keep Social Security solvent. At that rate, they’d be paying $62 million on a billion-dollar income in Social Security taxes as their fair share of maintaining America’s social contract.

But, because the tax rate is capped to “protect” the morbidly rich while sticking the rest of us with the full bill for Social Security, those titans of Wall Street pay the same $9,932.40 as the doctor who lives down the street from you and earns $160,200 a year.

This is, to use the economic technical term, nuts.

And, while every wealthy person in America knows all about this because it’s such a huge benefit to them, I’ll bet fewer than five percent of Americans know how this scam for the rich works. (I searched diligently, but couldn’t find a single survey that asked average folks if they knew about the cap.)

There is no other tax in America that works like this. Most have loopholes designed to promote specific socially desirable goals, like the deductibility of home mortgage interest or children, but no other tax is designed so that anybody earning over $160,200 is completely exempt and no longer has to pay a penny after their first nine thousand or so dollars.

And here’s where it gets really bizarre: if millionaires and billionaires paid the exact same 6.2% into Social Security that most of the rest of us do (and paid it on their investment income, which is also 100% exempt today), the program would not only be solvent for the next 75 years, but it would have so much extra cash that everybody on Social Security could get a significant raise in their monthly benefit payments.

But because America’s morbidly rich don’t want to pay their share for keeping Social Security solvent, Republicans are having a debate about how badly they can screw working class retirees.

They ask:

“Shall we cut the Social Security payments?”

“How about raising the retirement age from 67 (Reagan raised it from 65 to 67) to 70 or even 72?”

“Or maybe we should just hand the entire thing off to JPMorgan or Wells Fargo and let them run it, like we’re doing with Medicare? We could call it Social Security Advantage!”

“Or how about turning Social Security into a welfare program by ‘means testing’ it, so rich people can’t draw from it and every budget year it can become a political football for the GOP like food stamps or WIC?”

Responding to Welker’s severely incomplete question, Chris Christie hit all four:

GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “Sure, and we have to deal with this problem. Now look, if we raise the retirement age a few years for folks that are in their thirties and forties, I have a son who’s in the audience tonight who’s 30 years old. If he can’t adjust to a few year increase in Social Security retirement age over the next 40 years, I got bigger problems with him than his Social Security payments. “And the fact is we need to be realistic about this. There are only three things that go into determining whether Social Security can be solvent or not. Retirement age, eligibility for the program in general, and taxes. That’s it. We are already overtaxed in this country and we should not raise those taxes. But on eligibility also, I don’t know if out there tonight and if you’re watching Warren, I don’t know if Warren Buffett is collecting Social Security, but if he is, shame on you. You shouldn’t be taking the money.”

Christie was the only one of the five Republicans on the stage who even dared mention taxes.

Nikki Haley said:

“So first of all, any candidate that tells you that they’re not going to take on entitlements, is not being serious. Social Security will go bankrupt in 10 years, Medicare will go bankrupt in eight.”

Neither of those assertions are even remotely true, but, of course, this was a GOP debate. She continued:

“But for like my kids in their twenties, you go and you say we’re going to change the rules, you change the retirement age for them. Instead of cost of living increases, we should go to increases based on inflation. We should limit benefits on the wealthy.”

Her other solution, apropos of nothing, was to end government responsibility for Medicare and privatize the entire program by shutting down real Medicare and throwing us all to the tender mercies of the health insurance billionaires:

“And then expand Medicare Advantage plans. Seniors love that and let’s make sure we do that so that they can have more competition. That’s how we’ll deal with entitlement reform and that’s how we’ll start to pay down this debt.”

Ramaswamy’s answer was so incoherent and off-topic I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say he rambled on about the cost of foreign wars (Ukraine, Israel) “that many blood-thirsty members of both parties have a hunger for.” Apparently, Vivek doesn’t realize that Social Security isn’t part of our government’s overall budget but has its own segregated funds and trust fund.

Since it’s creation in 1935, Social Security never has and never will contribute to the budget deficit or influence any other kind of government spending.

Tim Scott said we should take a cue from Reagan, Bush, and Trump and just cut billionaires’ income taxes again because that does such a great job of stimulating the economy (not) and then claw back the inflation-based raises people on Social Security have received the past three years.

“Number two, you have to cut taxes. … So what we know is that the Laffer Curve still works, for the lower the tax, the higher the revenue. And finally, if we’re going to deal with it, we have to take our annual appropriations back to pre-2020, pre-COVID levels of spending, which would save us about a half a trillion dollars in the next budget window. By doing that, we deal with Social Security and our mandatory spending.”

DeSantis was equally incoherent, also refusing to answer the question about raising the retirement age and completely avoiding any mention of the sweetheart deal his billionaire donors get on their Social Security taxes. Instead, he said we needed to get inflation under control and stop Congress from “taking money from Social Security,” something Congress has never done and legally never will be able to do.

All this incoherence aside, Republicans appear to have a plan to deal with Social Security.

House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson has been pushing a “Catfood Commission” just like Reagan’s 1983 commission that raised the retirement age to 67, reaffirmed the cap on taxes, and made Social Security checks taxable as income. He no doubt expects his commissioners will provide “recommendations” Republicans can run with to cut benefits without raising taxes on their billionaire donors, all while blaming it on the commissioners just like Reagan did in 1983.

When Johnson said that his “top priority” was creating such a commission “immediately” and that his Republican colleagues had responded to the idea “with great enthusiasm,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee responded on Xitter:

“A week into his tenure, MAGA Mike Johnson is ALREADY calling for closed-door cuts to the Social Security and Medicare benefits American workers have earned through decades of hard work.”

But back to the original question. I understand why Republicans refuse to even consider lifting the cap on Social Security taxes so their morbidly rich donors won’t have to start paying their fair share of Social Security to keep the program solvent.

What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.

I’ve been watching Kristen Welker on television for years, and she’s generally been a pretty straight shooter as a reporter. Ditto for Lester Holt, who sat right beside her. This, frankly, astonished me.

Were they afraid Republicans would exact revenge on them if they raised the question of the tax cap?

Or was it precisely because they’re making millions, just like most of the executives they answer to?

More broadly, is this why we almost never hear any discussion whatsoever in the media — populated with other news stars who also make millions a year, managed by millionaire network executives — about lifting the cap?

One hopes the answer isn’t that crass...

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

They're starting to get more meta. Feel free to send me better memes via asks.

Awesome coffee is so incredibly good. And 100% of the profit goes to charity.

[lullabyes22-blog]

As Arcane S2 rolls around the corner, please remember...

That however beautiful this animated endeavor is, it remains the property of corporate giants like Riot, and streaming platforms like Netflix - both of which are notorious for

a) jumping that shark on successful premises due to a superabundance of bad suggestions trickling down to the creative depts in the form of Insipid Emails from Corporate

b) milking successful premises past the point of exhaustion due to their own success and leaving their twitching, feeble, barely-breathing remains to die an unceremonious death in the shadows of media obscurity, and

c) replacing their successful creators with less creative ones to save costs, because they don't understand the value of the creative input behind the show's success.

Please consider supporting the mobilization of workers/creatives on all shows - not just Arcane - to stop corporate meddling in the form of budget cuts and unfair wages, while their CEOs + board members continue to take home billions.

Please consider both petitioning and demanding that platforms like Netflix grow a spine and phase out the 'all episodes released at once' model, which actively harms the actors, animators, writers, costume designers, set departments, VFX experts and everyone else that worked hard on the series, by cheating them out of the right to receive paychecks and residuals over the lifespan of the show, instead of the cheapened instant gratification of a single deposit.

Please consider calling out Netflix on the need to have more episodes released per season on their shows, so writers, voice-actors, sound engineers and many others will have a steady stream of payments instead of an unpredictable one, and to give the characters, and the writers who wrote them, some breathing space instead of cramming all the plot points into 9 or 10 episodes.

Please remember that the creatives are often the public face of a franchise, and are often thrown into the line of fire when narrative decisions are made behind the scenes - decisions that they do not necessarily agree with, and are often not in control of, but are forced to sell anyway, lest they be replaced.

Please remember that hateful, threatening, and abusive behavior is not what we should be about as fans - and that the creatives who work on these shows/projects often read our comments, and feel the weight of our expectations and emotions.

Please consider supporting your creatives and showrunners as individuals, not just as "the person who makes X".

Please consider getting LOUD AF on Twitter/X about the bungling of character arcs via hashtags - and directing the vitriol @ the company producing the show, not the poor creators - because corporate runs numbers on that kind of stuff, and if there's a perceived furor about certain narrative directions/plotlines, they're less likely to ignore it and more likely to cave, because of the bottom line.

Please remember that a majority of dismal creative choices have come as a result of corporate/big tech pushing the button on creative decisions - and that, in order for us to be heard, we have to use our collective voice to push back, and keep pushing back until the message sinks in.

Please remember that beyond protecting a beloved series, it's about fighting to protect the people behind it, the same way they fought for the integrity of the story, and the characters, in their telling.

And, while we're at it, please support people within fandom spaces - like fanartists and fanfic writers - who share their labor of love for free, and don't get paid a cent, except in goodwill and appreciation.

Remember that fandoms are, first and foremost, a community.

It is not about content, but people.

Let's be good to each other, and to the creatives, and keep fighting for them to be treated well by the companies and executives who make money off their labor, and profit off our love.

<3

Some sources for funding. Feel free to add more.

The Animator Dormitory Project 2023

Grants for Writers in Need

Pen America

Entertainment Community

[thoughtportal]

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Ohio train derailment and corporate media

[queenofthequillandink]

I think a massive facet of Tim's secret identity should be that everyone in Gotham knows that if Tim had Bat Skills, he would simply be a benevolent supervillain instead. A feral little gremlin who would take out the kneecaps of every boomer trying to embezzle charity funds. Like, this is the bitch that's constantly ready to fight God in a Denny's parking lot. He would be out there committing murder every time someone tried to rezone Gotham's voting districts again; he'd just show up in their dark living room with anime eyeshine like, "oh? And you thought you could get away with this? 🔪"